


Darkness Over Beorunna's Well

by BATTLEFAIRIES, SnippetsRUs



Series: The Motley Mayhem [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Forgotten Realms
Genre: Adventure, Baatezu, Battle, Beorunna's Well, Black Lions, Blood Wars, Combat, Comedy, Comic Relief, D&D, Demon Summoning, Devil Pact, Drow, Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, Eldreth Veluuthra - Freeform, Elves, Evoker, Faerûn, Fantasy Racism, Female Lead, Fighter, Funny, Geeky References, Gen, Half-Elf, Humor, Humour, Intrigue, Lycans, Lycantropes, Mage Fight, Moon Witch, Nightmares, Pre-Spellplague, Prisoners, Quest, RPG, Raven Familiar, Selûne, Silver Marches, Summoning Ritual, Tanar'ri, Uthgardt, Virgin Sacrifice, barbarians - Freeform, dnd, imp, lycanthropy, necromancer - Freeform, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 06:54:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 32,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6042259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BATTLEFAIRIES/pseuds/BATTLEFAIRIES, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnippetsRUs/pseuds/SnippetsRUs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The incorrigible blonde dork Hulda Swanmantle sets out from her temple in Silverymoon to investigate a dubious 'priest' of Selûne recruiting naive young women in the barbaric Uthgardt settlement of Beorunna's Well.</p><p>As it turns out, more than a few people have plans for this secluded town, and the resulting events drag Hulda into a wild adventure that will ask more of her than her charm alone.</p><p>Treat yourself to a story brimming with Hulda's special brand of comedy, as well as fireballs, tragic misunderstandings, problems with pets and crossbow-toting barbarian girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bad Publicity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like so many adventures, this one starts out with something very little, such as not wanting to be around when your High Priestess checks herself in the mirror...

Hulda liked being in this part of the temple – the High Priestess' apartments were a tasteful sanctuary of ornate grey oaken panelling and lush carpets from the corner of each separate room to the next. Recently, some dolt had trodden these with dirty boots, she noticed as she placed her books on the round table in the little study that served as an antechamber to the salon. Doing so, she accidentally knocked the inkwell over, _and_ a tin vase as she jumped to try to keep the stuff from dripping on the carpet by cupping it in her hand. Fussing and turning, she tried to mop up the ink with a wad of her robes, praying to Selûne it was oak apple gall and not real iron gall ink. She never got the iron gall stain out of her previous robes... 

”Hulda!” the voice of the High Priestess came from the adjacent room. “Is that you?”

Hulda nearly knocked the inkwell over a second time.

”Yes Lady Meldrys! I've brought the books you requested,” she said, wiping the remainder of the ink off the tabletop and checking the precious tomes for spatters.

”Would you please come in – I'd like you to greet our visitor.”

Hulda made for the door to the salon, and happened to kick the vase she'd forgotten about so that it spun like a maple fruit and ended up under a cupboard. Just as well – it didn't look like something the High-Priestess used a lot, anyway.

Entering the bright salon with the velvet chairs and the silver chandelier that gently rocked in the sudden draft coming in through the open balcony doors, Hulda thought she'd found the dolt with the dirty boots. The slightly grizzly, ageing man had a gruff face marked by harsh weather and by worry, and his clothes - but his boots especially - were stained from much travel in the wilderness. He had a scar next to his left temple, just visible between his thinning hair, and the eye on that side seemed to have lost all muscle-tension, as it kept looking at a spot directly above Hulda's head, even as she came nearer to shake his hand in greeting.

”Hulda Swanmantle,” she said with a half-curtsy, half-bow. The man grumbled something – his name? – and Hulda saw he had actual tusks, meaning he was orc-blooded.

”Hroar Hrovatr is a Harper scout,” the Lady Meldrys came to Hulda's aid. “He has travelled through Beorunna's Well a tenday ago, and would like to voice his concerns about a cleric of ours who is stationed there.”

”But... I don't think anyone of us is up there at the moment,” Hulda said, confused. “Nearly everyone was here for the Moonfire-ritual the night before yesternight, except our brothers and sisters who went on their pilgrimage to Waterdeep.” 

To her continued befuddlement, the High Priestess looked pleased.

”You see, kind sir? It is as I said – your eyes must have deceived you if you saw a priest of ours in Beorunna's Well,” Meldrys told the Harper, and Hulda braced for the man's reaction at the mention of his eyesight. To her relief, he only leaned back to cross his legs the other way – putting the other dirty boot right next to the stain the first one had made between the chair and the little table with the refreshments. Hulda saw that Meldrys had noticed, and she started to feel really uncomfortable herself, standing there with this awkward conversation going on. Looking for an escape route, she eyed the door she came through – and noticed the ink stains on the handle. Right then, the Harper scout spoke:

”I'm not sure if that's something to be triumphant about, or even at ease. This may be a self-proclaimed priest you're dealing with, _or_ an outright impostor,” Hroar Hrovatr grumbled around his tusks. “At any rate, he's already recruited several of the town's naive young women for his debatable rituals, causing much outrage among the populace and some really bad publicity for your Church.”

Meldrys' expression wasn't quite befitting her earlier smugness.

”We can't have that, can we,” she said at length. “We'll send one of ours over as soon as we can, to assess the situation and clear things up with the citizens of Beorunna's Well. Selûne's light is the only hope for salvation to the lycanthropes that live in the woods nearby – we cannot risk anyone slandering her name.”

”I expected nothing less,” Hroar Hrovatr said, and rose from his seat. Meldrys saw him out.

”Selûne guide you on your travels,” she wished him good-bye, and the scout grunted a reply of sorts as he went out. Hulda froze when she saw Meldrys holding the dirty door-handle.

”Hulda – are you doing anything tomorrow?” the woman asked, returning to the little table to sip her tea. The ink-stained hand was the one holding the saucer.

”I, err, I – you mean, I don't ink – I don't _think_ so,” Hulda stammered. “Would you like me to go to Beorunna's Well? I can be on my way by noon, if you like.”

”You're a blessing to our order, Hulda,” Meldrys cooed as she gently urged her out the door. “Don't forget to stock up on wolfsbane when you pass by the infirmary. Let's hope you won't need any.”

”Yes m'lady,” Hulda was eager to oblige, and she was already halfway down the stairs when Meldrys' voice came after:

”Oh dear, look at your robes. That looks like ink.”

Hulda paled.

”I errrr... I think I must have tipped an inkwell. In the scriptorium.”

Meldrys cupped her chin and shook her head.

”You're incorrigible my dear – I pray your clumsiness won't get you in any trouble when you're on this mission.” With those words, she went back inside and closed the door behind her – but not before Hulda had caught a glimpse of the goatee-like smudge on the High Priestess' chin.


	2. Small Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adventuring isn't always idyllic. And small critters can have very large egos...

Hulda's skewer with the sausages had fallen into her little campfire, and she didn't think she had any left. Only a day after she'd departed on her quest, rain and cold had her reconsider whether rushing out the door in fear of ink-stained Meldrys' reaction like that had been a good idea. She was short a pair of extra socks, her gloves were two left ones and with the sausages gone, all she had left now was dry crackers. She didn't even like crackers all that much.

She hadn't seen Fundinn that day yet, either. The familiar probably sensed Hulda's bad mood and wisely kept his distance. Or perhaps he knew about the spoiled sausages – while technically a carrion bird himself, Fundinn had a deep-rooted fear of getting eaten. Instinctively, Hulda knew him to be close, however. Falling pine-needles and angry squawking overhead confirmed this for her. It would appear that Fundinn had gotten himself in a scrap – not wanting to share his perch with a squirrel or woodpecker again, perhaps. The raven's angry squabbling got steadily worse, and soon was followed by him and the object of his dismay plummeting through the canopy and into the campfire, scattering hot cinders and burnt sausages as the fighting continued. Hulda hurried to swat the fire out with her rain-cape and separate the two creatures – to her surprise, the one Fundinn was currently exhausting his entire lexicon of foul names on was no stranger to her.

”I know you,” she said as she held the tiny red fiend up by a leathery wing, “your master Orgolorth gave you to me. Where is he? Or did you come here all by yourself?”

”My means of reaching you are classified information!” the imp warned, trying to strike an intimidating figure even while dangling nearly upside-down like he did. It bothered Hulda that she couldn't quite recall his name.

”I pound him plying around. The inpernal piend has probably been pollowing you since you lept the city! He's a spy!” Fundinn piped in. He looked only slightly singed, with no lasting damage done. If anything, the bird looked miffed about being swatted at with a cape.

”Your unintelligible bird has it all wrong – I've been sent to stay near in case you require my services! Or Master Orgolorth's, of course. His vast power has innumerable applications, and I'm here to bring those to your attention, should need for them arise,” the imp said.

”Pipple – you were spying, little deppil!” Fundinn fussed. With an angry clapping of his black beak, he readied himself to jump the imp. Hulda jerked her captive away just in time.

”What did he call me?” the tiny fiend yelled, shaking little fists at the raven.

”Fundinn has a speech impediment,” Hulda explained, while the familiar alighted on her shoulder.

”Epper seen a bird with lips?” he snapped.

The imp, not without effort, had grabbed Hulda's wrist, and she let him climb onto her hand.

”I'm calling you Pooky,” she declared.

The imp stared.

”I beg you pardon?” he said at last.

On Hulda's shoulder, Fundinn ruffled his feathers.

”The piend is hard op hearing – deap as a post, ip he can't understand neither Hulda nor distinguished ol' me,” he said with no small amount of satisfaction. He scooted closer, onto Hulda's forearm. “Pooky, huh? Pardon me beporehand, ip I mispronounce that as Poopy, in a moment of distraction.”

The imp looked lost, staring slack-jawed at Hulda and Fundinn alternately.

”Your other name was way too complicated,” Hulda assured the wretch. The imp's expression tightened.

”What's wrong with Peio'xabi'farr?!” he exclaimed. In answer, Fundinn threw his head back and clappered loudly.

”Propoundly ludicrous...!” he chortled. “Pundinn on the other hand – now there's a name with noble bearing...”

”Pudding?” the imp echoed, raising the scaly ridges that served him as eyebrows. Fundinn's expression fell.

”Please guys, don't fight,” Hulda implored the two critters, causing both heads to turn at once. 

”He started it!”

The fact that both had said the same thing at the same time, apparently, was reason enough for the two to pick up where they had left and start pecking and biting at one another anew.

With a sigh, Hulda cast a spell of Dismissal to return the imp to his infernal home. Fundinn, on the other hand, kept jumping around and shouting profanities.

”Off with you!” Hulda shooed him away. “Go traumatise an owl or so – I need to get the fire going again...!”

The raven wasn't happy to be sent away, but he knew better than to test her. When he picked his way through the forest's canopy, sending more needles down than needed as he flew from bough to bough, Hulda called after him:

“And you better find yourself something to eat, too – we're out of sausages!”

”Well, puck,” she heard the bird comment, before he flew off into the evening sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	3. Local Cuisine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very underestimated opponent in an adventurer's life is Dubious Food. In this chapter, Hulda will both combat her gag reflex and be confronted with food for thought - what exactly is going on in Beorunna's Well?

Hulda was sore and dirty when, after a good tenday's worth of travel, she hobbled into the one and only tavern of the crude, ramshackle town that was Beorunna's Well. The locals, while not usually lacking in skill when it came to crafting things, had been nomadic up until only a couple of years ago and erecting buildings that would last longer than that still required some looking-into, according to Hulda. She even nervously eyed the ceiling of the drinking house as she entered, so she could estimate if it'd stay in place for the duration of her visit.

The place smelled of smoke from the huge hearth, and of hotchpotch bubbling in the pot hung over the flames. She ordered some, and got a fat clay tankard of honey-ale to go with it – unasked for, but apparently, mead went without saying here.

The barkeep, a Black Lion Uthgardt like nearly all of the inhabitants of Beorunna's Well, was a rugged man with woad patterns crawling up his arms, the muscles of which were thick and hard as mooring-cables. The only way Hulda could be sure that he wasn't a patron like the other men drinking in the tavern was his position in relation to the bar, and by extent the larder directly behind it. As soon as he'd provided Hulda with food and drink, he went back to that very same spot, attempting to look as broad as possible to discourage anyone from feeling too at-home near his pantry.

Hulda, starving, gobbled the mushy stew up before, mead in hand, making her acquaintance with the locals and trying to find out more about the alleged priest the Harper scout had talked about.

Noisy and dirty hunters coming back from their pelt-hunt came through the door the moment Hulda sat down with three of the least inebriated Black Lions, and now these new arrivals loudly proclaimed their wish for food. One fished a leg of cony out of the pot without asking, and after finding the meat not entirely to his taste, dropped it right back into the brew. A comrade of his threw in a freshly skinned little animal – a mole, was Hulda's best guess, though not her favourite one.

”Enjoying your mead?” one of the men at her table asked.

”Yes, quite,” Hulda said, and hastened to take a swig and banish the taste of stew from her mouth.

”You here for trade?” another wanted to know. This guy had foam on his moustache and beard.

Hulda hesitated to answer. She hadn't seen anyone looking like a priest of Selûne yet, and so she wasn't sure whom she'd be dealing with. Maybe she'd better be cautious, and do her investigation undercover. On the other hand, she hadn't nearly enough money to impersonate a merchant.

The door swinging open again proved to be her salvation: all eyes were drawn to a young, barefooted local woman, not yet in her twentieth year, with flowers in her hair and white ribbons trailing from her wrists.

”Moon shine on your path, everyone,” she greeted the patrons, and gave the barkeep a peck on the cheek before going up a flight of rickety stairs and disappearing out of sight.

”Bah, my sister's daughters are like that, too, now,” Hulda's partner in conversation mumbled to his mates.

”They're getting worse, aren't they?” one said.

”The ones from my cousin are demanding he buys them white silk for new clothes,” the first one continued.

”Tell him he stalls until winter. There's a reason why rabbits and foxes don't wear silk,” another advised. All grunted in agreement, and simultaneously drained their cups before asking a refill.

”So – is it business that brings you here?” the first one asked again.

Hulda swallowed; she'd forgotten to think about a plan.

”I'm... writing a book on commendable taverns along the route to... to the North,” she said, and took another swig to celebrate. ”So – noticed any suspicious people around town, lately?"

She could have hit herself that instant – the Black Lions however, were still hiccuping with laughter about her previous sentence.

”This tavern ain't so far north, or so fancy that travellers are desperate to enter,” one Uthgard explained. “There's been two foreigners in town yesterday, talking with that foppish _Selûnatic_ of ours and _they_ haven't bothered to rent a room. I bet they've made camp in the forest! I saw 'm when I checked my snares this morning – they're Southerners.”

”Maybe word about that timber merchant finding a raccoon with a litter of five in his bed has travelled far already,” another joked. All men laughed and jeered and called out to the barkeep, who gave them a sound rolling of the eyes.

"That Selûnati-, I mean Selûnite," Hulda was quick to correct herself, "what's he like?"

All three Uthgardt men narrowed their eyes at her. "Why? You planning on being friends with the bloke?" the middle one asked.

"Haha, no," Hulda laughed it off, "I just figured I should start somewhere. You know – for the book?" She flashed them her most innocent smile. The added touch of feminine charm worked wonders, and the men leaned back in their seats, their expressions softening. 

"Glad you ask us first, and not the young women of our tribe. They're quite smitten with the lad, though he looks more like a girl, if you ask me," the one on the left replied, "and his voice is so soft you'd think he was trying to lure in a pack of kittens for cuddles."

"Or to skin 'em," the right one countered. "There's much about that one that's outright _foul_ , if you know what I mean." He shook his head, a deep-seated frown on his face, before taking another gulp of his mead. "I don't like it, not one bit."

"Maybe that's why the Southerners want him," the left one suggested. "They fancied themselves some young Uthgardt women and are looking to join up with him."

His two companions shot him dark looks. 

"That's no joking matter, you fool!" The middle man looked ready to murder his companion. "Especially since those bastards would be more than likely to enslave them!"

"I'm sure he didn't mean it quite like that," Hulda cut in, worried that her questions would lead to someone's untimely death, "it's just peculiar, as I'm sure you all agree. Then again, as you yourselves pointed out, the Selûnite does seem to draw people's attention to himself, no?"

The man in the middle calmed down. 

"Well, aye. I suppose if you want something to write about, you'll have to seek that Selûnatic out." He motioned for the exit. "Or the Southerners."

"Don't let people talk you into any of that Selûnite nonsense, though," the man on the right advised. "You'd bring great sadness to your family if you were to be lost to silly flights of fancy like our girls."

Hulda felt momentarily wounded, but reminded herself that the man was probably speaking from fear of losing the girls of his own tribe. She offered him a smile all the same. 

"Thank you for the warning, I'll be careful."

Next, to get everyone's minds off of the worries of the present, the three men engaged each other in tales of their ancestor's exploits, and of future hunts they hoped to undertake, forgetting all about Selûnites and Southerners.

Hulda, meanwhile, knew enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	4. What Not To Say To Girls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The following chapter doubles as a crash course in the art of Not Getting On a Lady's Bad Side. Feel free to imagine your 'Life of Brian' scene of choice with the exchange between Hulda and a local girl, and don't forget your popcorn as the first combat scene of this story unfolds.

Stepping outside to go and see if she could find these Southern individuals – Beorunna's Well was far too small a community to receive people from so far away regularly, and if they came especially to talk to the subject of her investigation, such a presence was suspicious if anything – Hulda passed under the supposed bedroom window of the barkeep's daughter, going by the lilting voice that sang a Waterdhavian hymn to Selûne.

Hulda picked up a pair of pebbles and threw them against the paned window – which turned out to have no glass in it at all. Glass-making was something the Black Lions were still strangers to, apparently. Soon enough, the girl poked her head outside all the same.

”Who're you?” she asked, flicking a pebble back.

”Moon shine on your path, Moon-sister.” Hulda hailed, remembering the odd greeting from before. She thought adding 'Moon-sister' was a nice touch, and inwardly complimented herself for it as she continued: “Could you tell me where I can find the village priest?”

”Are you a virgin?” the girl asked.

Hulda felt her eyebrows touch each other.

”...What does that even have to do with it?” she blurted.

”That's a no then,” the girl said, and Hulda could hear contempt dripping off the simple statement. “Star-Luster mustn't have dealings with women who aren't virgins, by decree of the Moongoddess herself. It's a purity thing, for the big ritual and all that – he's been touched by the Moon, you know,” the girl said off-handedly.

Hulda blinked.

”... _Starbuster_?” she asked incredulously, “...and you're saying the moon _touched him_?” That was one giggle she couldn't stifle.

The girl's indignation was immediate:

”Star- _Luster_...! And if you think you can slander his name in the presence of _me_ you've got another thing coming!” she scolded, and before Hulda could apologize or explain, the girl had grabbed an enormous crossbow from somewhere in the room to aim at her head.

Even as Hulda ran for cover, from the corner of her eyes she could see a black blur descend on the markswoman's head, screeching, clawing and pecking. A crossbow bolt ricocheted off a bucket and struck a wooden wall somewhere.

The girl had to raise an arm to guard herself from the worst of the onslaught, while Fundinn – it was him, naturally – went as far as adding insult to injury to get her attention away from Hulda:

”Ack!” he squawked, “Pardon me, miss! With that awpul barbarian musk op yours, I mistook you por a cadappre!”

The bird gave Hulda a look as to indicate she should run; she reached the protecting foliage of the forest just as she heard Fundinn call the girl's dress 'so last season'.

Crossbow quarrels kept flying every which way though, and Hulda didn't know how fast to get out of there – and neither did her feet, because she nearly tripped twice and managed to collide with an anthill the third time. She scooped up a large portion of it too, as she slid face-first across the forest floor.

”The woods it is then,” she decided as she had finished dancing around and wiping the remainder of the insects off of her. Something told her this Starbuster wasn't operating alone, merely recruiting – perhaps indeed for slavers – which would explain why the Southerners were keeping a low profile.

She pulled up her hood and went deeper into the Woods.

 

* * *

 

 

After circling the little town once, at a distance, Hulda had formed an idea of where to look. The forest was too swampy in the West to allow for camping, and there was too much lodging going on in the South to allow for visitors set on discretion. The terrain sloped gently down in the east – towards the spring Beorunna's Well was named after, most likely – and that would be where she would bivouac if given the choice.

And sure enough, after an afternoon of trudging, Hulda heard a whistled tune that belonged to no bird. Sneaking closer, she noticed she'd found the Well – and a Southerner.

He wore a black cape with a hood, drawn close around him against the chill that he'd probably feel worse than Hulda – the arm that reached for a wineskin bobbing in the no doubt icy waters of the well was much darker than hers, and jingled with exotic golden bracelets. The stranger quit whistling to sing a chorus to his little song; a foreign tavern melody about drinks and games, and after retrieving the skin he stood up to head for the tree line on the far side of the well.

Hulda waited a good long moment and then tip-toed after him, trying not to be heard but not wanting to lose sight of her quarry either. After having covered half the distance from her hiding place to the next tree opposite the well, she froze – the man had stopped in his tracks.

For an instant, Hulda feared that the beating of her racing heart would reach his ears, but after he'd taken a swig from the wineskin, he walked on.

”No further,” someone unexpectedly and uncomfortably close said, and Hulda felt the coldness of sharp steel pressing against the side of her neck even as the magic invisibility of the weapon and its wielder was dismissed; another hooded man standing right beside her had her at sword-point.

”On behalf of myself and my friend, I thank you for walking into our trap,” the first, re-emerging from the forest said. “If you decide to be sporty and fight back, that'd be fun but ultimately unnecessary: there isn't a way in the Nine Hells you'll be leaving this place alive!"

Hulda backed away from the sword, to no avail – it could have been glued there for all it was worth, and she was dangerously close to stepping into the well beside her.

This gave her an idea.

Invoking the blessing which her goddess had placed on her magical cloak, Hulda sidestepped onto the water-surface, and out of reach of the probing blade. The next moment, she had ten paces and an ice-cold well between herself and the swordsman. With grim determination, she started weaving a spell to improve her aim, and prepared to throw some nasty magic at her would-be assassins, starting with the smug one.

Business-like and not the least bit surprised, or even disturbed by her familiarity with arcane magic, the two men threw back their hoods and shed their heavy cloaks as to not impede their movements.

Hulda sized up her opponents as they slowly circled the well, like wolves confidently waiting for the right moment to pounce: both Southerners wore roughly woven, but colourful clothes with sashes, complemented with sandals and bandannas, and both had coal-black curls cropped close to their scalps. Their skin colour was of a curious sallow tan, like dark tea mixed with too much cream.

The warrior toted a breastplate and a shield of bronze, both somewhat in a state of neglect, and he brought his tall, black sword to bear; the other ignited the air between his splayed fingers with a mere muttered syllable.

Hulda noticed the golden rings the mage wore on each hand, and the expensive armlets that didn't match the haphazardly thrown-together garments. He even had a magical staff, which were known to be near priceless. How was it that a slaver could afford the gold and not a nicer outfit? Or were these men robbers as well as slave-raiders?

The one with the sword advanced, stepping between his comrade and Hulda – the way he held his weapon in a high guard, nearly perfectly horizontal and still like a bough on a windless day, had Hulda suspect he was at least militia-trained, and all the more to fear because of it.

He seemed intent on maintaining his position between Hulda and the spellcaster, providing her with yet more reason to worry: she doubted she would get the chance to interrupt any of his spells at all unpunished.

Directing a shaft of magical ice and cold at the warrior instead, Hulda saw it canceled out in mid-air by an identical lance of fire from the grinning mage behind her target. She realised the two worked in tandem – complementing and protecting one another with magic and melee.

It was as she thought this that the swordsman lunged and hewed at her. Hulda ducked under the flashing steel and set her weight against the man's abdomen; he grunted and staggered back enough for Hulda to unhook Pinky from her belt, and for the mage to squeeze a well-aimed fireball in.

It ignited not nearly close enough to harm his comrade, but seared Hulda's left half something awful. Falling back and making sure not to trip on the slippery outer edge of the well and fall into the water, she made it to the tree line, where she hoped to find some cover from that sort of magic. To her surprise, the man with the sword and his companion didn't make any attempt to follow.

The reason for that struck Hulda the same moment as the next fireball – this one apparently rigged to manifest the moment she tried to enter its predestined perimeter.

She rolled right back to the well, where she was greeted by a savage vertical swipe from the warrior's black sword, aimed for her neck. Turning right in time onto her stomach to see the weapon get lodged solidly in the fat, damp clay so close to the water, Hulda saw an opening. Swiveling onto her right knee, she aimed Pinky low and straight: the man's simple bronze greaves prevented his shinbone from splintering on impact as the morningstar bit into his lower leg, but not from the slippery side of the well. The warrior reeled, and aided by a prod from Hulda's boot took a dip in the cold waters.

Propelled by her temporary victory and the respite from the swordsman's pressing attempts to decapitate her, Hulda took on the spellcaster, who was conjuring a wall of towering flames between the two of them.

Hulda used a fierce blast of wind to chase the flames towards their master, and she heard him coughing curses behind a curtain of smoke - a fireball that was thrown in anger went wide. Covering her retreat with another load of icy coldness, she sprinted towards the exact spot where she had sprung the fiery booby-trap, hoping the Southerner wouldn't have thought to place another that close-by.

She got floored by a soaking-wet warrior, tackling her from behind. He'd had to leave his sword, but as he lifted her nearly off the ground, his forearm pressing so hard against her throat she had trouble breathing, Hulda felt him fumbling to reach the dagger he had on his belt. She had no place to put her feet, nor was she in the position to swing Pinky. Instead, she rushed a magic spell of greasing and slid from the warrior's grip like a wet bar of soap.

It was enough to get her free, but not out of reach of the man's dagger. Hulda heard it cleave the air directly beside her face, and she immediately rose to answer in kind with a morningstar to the armpit. Compromising the momentum and limiting the damage, the warrior moved with the blow and followed through by grabbing Hulda's arm above the elbow and then, viciously slicing upwards as if cutting hemp rope, severing the muscle right to the bone.

Hulda cried out, straining to keep a hold on Pinky with the useless arm and unable to heal the profusely bleeding wound, as the dagger came for her again.

Kicking its wielder in the already abused shin, she escaped a second time, and backed away so she could call on the magic of her cloak once more, this time lifting her up as if she'd suddenly become weightless.

”You cast spells like a girl,” the grinning mage sneered at her when he joined his friend, Hulda floating several yards above their heads already and starting to get carried off by the gentle breeze.

She'd wanted to throw an icy missile at the insufferable man's face, but held back – why had he said that? And why had he stopped firing his confounded fireballs at her - did he run out?

Below her, the two men stood side by side and watched her with rapt attention. Hulda, despite herself, checked her skirts and stockings to make sure nothing inappropriate was going on.

Then, she heard the Southerners count down in chorus:

”Three... two...”

On 'one', Hulda felt the most disquieting sensation, like an unseen force tearing at the magic that held her up. Her wondrous cloak couldn't compete and failed her, sending her toppling into a maple tree and through the next fire-ball trap, which blasted her senseless.

 

* * *

 

When her sight stopped being all blurry, Hulda found herself dangling upside-down some four, five-ish feet above the ground, with her left foot wedged tightly in a forked branch.

”That was fairly easy,” she heard the spellcaster comment.

His friend, dripping wet and limping, huffed his disagreement as they approached Hulda. She moaned, straining to get words to form in her mouth. Something was tickling her nose, and she sneezed – a blister on her side popped painfully.

“Lop his head off, will you. We could be back before dinner,” the mage told the swordsman.

”I'm a woman,” Hulda mustered, bringing her hand up to grab the tickling thing. It was the chain of her holy symbol of Selûne.

Hooking his dagger behind the pendant, the warrior snatched it out of Hulda's reach before she could pray for healing.

”This is a surprisingly beautiful and intricate Selûnite symbol,” the man observed, and showed his mate. “Are we sure this is who we think it is?”

”Yes! I mean, no you aren't, I'm a total stranger!” Hulda blurted, “I'm a moon witch; my name is Hulda, and I came here only this morning!”

The spellcaster stepped closer, and regarded her with a frown. Hulda offered him her most innocent smile.

”Let's try that amulet of yours again,” he told his friend, who pulled a thin chain with a coin-sized medallion over his head and held it up in front of Hulda's face.

The little golden disk spun rapidly, and even gravitated towards her nose ever so slightly.

”The amulet says it has to be him,” he stated, but Hulda could tell he wasn't at ease about it.

”I'm a woman,” she objected a second time. She took more offense than she thought possible.

The spellcaster scratched his head, and stepped back a pace to size Hulda up.

”It's a disguise,” he suddenly said. “I'm sure of it.”

The warrior's dagger tickled Hulda's neck under her ear.

”I'm pretty sure it isn't,” she frowned, trying to stare the man's employer down. The Southerner only chuckled as he started weaving magic between his hands.

”Haha – your taste in women has betrayed you,” he said. “Those are some nice curves, but they won't help you now...!”

He uttered a command word, and Hulda felt the magic waft into her face. Fortunately, and to the Southerner's surprise, nothing nasty happened.

”...Has something blocked your dispelling attempt?” the warrior asked, alarmed.

The other man scratched his sparse beard, giving Hulda a doubtful look.

”No, I eh, hmm,” he cleared his throat. “...About the _curves_ ,” he started to explain to Hulda, but she cut him short.

”Don't sweat it – I'm taking it as a compliment. Now – if it's not overly inconveniencing you guys...” she pointed at her left foot.

Rarely had she seen two men spring so quickly to her aid – femininity was restored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	5. With Your Powers Combined

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a good thing Hulda isn't the kind to hold grudges, because these Southerners turn out to be agreeable - and resourceful - company. Will they think the same of her? Hulda is already brimming with enthusiasm to make herself useful, as you're about to find out.

That evening, all patched up and better, Hulda carefully observed the two men opposite their little campfire in the woods.

Marek, personal bodyguard to the Evoker wizard who was named Zan, had a perpetual scowl that had Hulda wonder whether the man was born with it. His face, pensive as it was while he ran the whetstone along his black blade, was as a showcasing of sharp ends and edges – his nose was thin and straight aside from where it had once been broken, not far below the ridge of the stern brow which was accented by the hard line of his thin and sharp, dark eyebrows.

His lips were pointedly locked in a near-pout, making matters worse, but Hulda didn't think he was entirely unattractive: his chin was well-defined with a little dimple, and he had a jaw-line that looked sharp enough to cut yourself on. Besides, when he actually made eye-contact – by accident, Hulda guessed – she found that his eyes, framed by long, dark lashes, were a lovely hazel.

Not so in Zan, whose eyes were nearly as dark as his hair, but also more profound because of it. His face was a lively jumble of things that didn't seem to sit still for a single moment – his boyish grin was on the left side this time, and on the right the next; his eyebrows, too, quirked or flew up in funny angles at the merest incentive. His teeth were a healthy, pearly white, and his cheeks fuller than Marek's and sporting a modest, short beard.

The single golden ring that graced Zan's left ear added to the playful asymmetry, when it caught the light of the camp-fire as the mage turned to face Hulda.

”So, what brings you here, then? Tell us of your travels, little sister!” he said.

Hulda's mind raced at the mention of travels. Which part should she start with, the one where she met Rhyl'lyn in a Luskan street and got herself arrested for healing him, or that one time when she found out she was bound by blood to a powerful pit fiend? There were other tales to tell, true, but the drow she'd saved had a tendency to pop up in each and every one of them, and she didn't know yet how the company she was in would react to the mention of her dark elf friend.

"Luskan isn't the most scenic place," she finally settled on, deliberately leaving out the part about their imprisonment, "I wouldn't recommend going there on a holiday."

"Ah yes, and such charming people, the Luskans are," the Evoker said with a wink and a grin. He pushed a cup in her hands, and toasted with his own.

They were silver-plated tin, and filled with wine. Hulda eyed her cup suspiciously.

“I'm government-funded,” Zan guessed her thoughts. “The glorious nation of Unther takes good care of her agents. And I like to travel and camp in style, as is befitting a man of my skill.”

”But then why are you walking around in... that,” Hulda pointed.

The wizard plucked at his colourful, piecemeal garb.

”Sister, if you've seen an explosion close-by once too many...” he held up a hand to preemptively silence Hulda, “...and _believe_ me when I say you haven't, you'll care less about what you're wearing each day. One can't mend burn-holes that are large enough to step through.”

”Point taken. But if you like to travel in style, why stay in the woods? Beorunna's Well has an inn house,” Hulda pointed out.

”Everyone knows the inns up north are infested with all sorts of things,” Zan waved the notion away.

”Raccoons and worse,” his bodyguard clarified.

Zan eagerly nodded:

“You wouldn't believe the specimen we saw yesterday,” he said, sloshing wine in the general direction of the town, “...wearing his silver-painted hair long like a nymph, dangling with jewelery wherever it would stay on. And yet girls would murder one another for the honour to feed him berries and cake! I tell you...”

”That's Starbuster!” Hulda interrupted, but then she remembered that the fact that these two had been seen making conversation with him was the reason why she had sought them out in the first place. “What did you need from him?” she asked a startled Zan – who appeared slightly intimidated by Hulda's enthusiastic outburst.

”It's part of our strategy,” he finally said, leaning in as to give that sentence a conspiring feel. “We know he's a pawn of the esteemed Lord Mortimere, who is to be skewered on a sword by a perfect replica of his minion. In order to make the illusion convincing, I was to get a good look at -”

“Did you say... _Mortimere_?” Hulda asked, incredulously.

The mention of his name did not bode well – not combined with what she already knew. The Untheri regarded each other and Hulda alternately.

”What do you know about him?” the wizard demanded.

”Pah – that he's a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Ambitious at the expense of the innocent, and a practitioner of Necromancy,” Hulda said. “I've had dealings with him before. If it's true what you say, and this priest is, in fact, his subordinate... then I fear he – oh Selûne forbid it!”

Hulda had veered up involuntarily; the girl with the crossbow, back at Beorunna's Well, had mentioned a 'big ritual'.

“He's going to sacrifice the virgins!” she yelped, throwing her arms wide. Next to her, Marek the warrior flailed as he fell off his log because of her wild gesturing.

”Not if our little plan succeeds,” Zan hushed, and motioned for Hulda to sit down again. “We'll just make sure we do it as soon as we can.”

”But... the amulet,” Marek reminded him, getting up and making sure to give Hulda all the room she wanted.

The wizard muffled a grumbled curse with his hand.

”True – it seems we're short a way to locate Mortimere, seeing as the amulet is faulty,” he muttered. “The thing's a badly calibrated piece of junk and a total rip-off – I asked for an aging Waterdhavian Necromancer and I got a blonde chick. ...No offense!” he assured Hulda. She shrugged.

”If he's going to perform a vile necromantic ritual with virgin sacrifices, chances are he'll do it at a place where the boundaries between life and death are easily converged,” she mused. “He'd pick one of the Uthgardt's Ancestral Mounds, for sure. There's one not a day's travel from here.”

”You seem to be rather well-informed,” Zan said with an appreciative note in his voice.

”I'm a moon witch – and Selûne won't stand for people being misguided like that, or for resting souls being disturbed. I should come with,” Hulda said. “Pinky here's an expert in dealing with any undead we may come across,” she stated as she patted the handle of her morningstar.

The wizard's eyebrows made a funny wobble.

”If that's a pinky, I'm glad you didn't hit my bodyguard with a fist...!”

Hulda grinned.

“First though,” she said, “I should send my familiar to my temple to deliver word of Mortimere's involvement... I'm talking about _you_ , you rude old snoot...! Come on down, I know you're up there!” she called at the tree-tops overhead.

She was fairly certain her raven felt embarrassed about not being there when his moon witch was consecutively cut up, blown up and made to dangle from a tree like a wet sock... Not that the poor bird could've survived even a glancing blow from a fireball – inwardly, Hulda thanked her luck and her sturdy frame.

”I'm not trying to be rude or snooty,” Fundinn said when he came flapping down, and picked a place by the fire not too far away from the scraps of dinner. “I was merely trying to delay the ineppitable.”

Zan looked confused.

”The what now?”

”And there it is,” the raven sighed, and hung his head.

 

* * *

 

That night, Hulda woke up when something bounded off her nose. It was too light-weight to be an acorn, and when she took a look at the thing that had rolled into a fold of her traveling blanket, she found it was a tiny little cork. Something about the smell it bore was familiar, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Over by the fire, Marek, who had middle watch, was lifting one foot, then the other, as if looking for something he'd dropped. Hulda saw him shrug, and then quaff the small vial he'd been holding. She didn't think he'd noticed that she was awake.

After exhaling slowly, the Untheri returned the empty container to the leather draw string pouch in his lap, quivering hands wrapping it up quickly in a piece of cloth. The soft clinking sound it made when he hid it under his own blanket told Hulda there had to be more vials in there – what _was_ that smell?

Careful, she smelled the stopper again, taking a deep whiff this time.

Marek nearly jumped over the fire when Hulda coughed and sneezed – she'd accidentally inhaled the thing. Poking her nose only stuffed it up further, too.

The warrior quickly handed her Zan's wineskin, and Hulda pretended to drink. As far as she knew, there was no cure for a piece of cork between your eyes.

”I dink I'll neeb a hangrhurrheef,” she slobbered, teary-eyed and with half of her nose starting to run..

Marek hesitated, but after a moment procured for her the very piece of cloth she'd just seen him cover up his stash of vials with.

Hulda nodded her thanks, and blew her nose in a series of trumpeting honks that should have woken the entire forest, were it not that it was presently occupied by the continent's most soundly sleeping wizard and his companions.

Feeling the piece of cork dislodge and come out, Hulda sighed in relief, and held up the improvised handkerchief to Marek, who signaled for her to hold on to it a while longer.

”Would you like me to take up my watch now?” she asked. “I'm wide awake, at any rate.”

”If it's no trouble,” the warrior said, and offered her his place beside the fire.

He threw on a couple more sticks before returning to his own sleeping spot and leaving Hulda with roughly three hours to solve her little riddle.

The answer came to her, when she sat watching the acrobatics of the campfire's sparks – a piece of dry leaf flew up as it ignited, and landed near Marek's exposed left foot, where its fiery glow quickly dimmed and disappeared. Hulda realised it might as well have fallen right onto the bare skin, and the man wouldn't have noticed – he'd just drunk _tekkil_.

During her time as a novice in the Temple of Selûne in Silverymoon, Hulda had assisted the surgeons and healers at the time of the big fire that nearly destroyed two blocks in the poorer part of the city. By way of exception, the burn-victims that day were given an extract of the infamous tekkil root.

It numbed pain more efficiently than the usual prescriptions, even canceling it out completely for several hours - but unfortunately, the toxic plant had severe side-effects, such as lethargy and the inability to make one's own decisions when used over prolonged periods of time, and it oftentimes caused the patients to become addicted. Hulda had tried to memorise the sticky-sweet, carrot-like smell for that reason.

Was Marek such a hapless case? Without a doubt, he'd have been treated for injury at one time or another, with his profession – and since, apparently, he knew how to come by more of the stuff, that addiction wasn't going to go away by itself.

Feeling in the mood for a good deed, guerrilla-style, Hulda used a stick to maneuver the draw string pouch from under Marek's blanket, and set to pouring each and every dose into the hot ashes of the fire before using Zan's wine to fill the vials up again. It looked only slightly darker than the real stuff, and no doubt the smell was different, but it should be enough to keep the bodyguard from trying to buy new ones as soon as he set eye on them.

…There would be words, no doubt, once Hulda's meddling was discovered, but in the light of the greater good, that would be something she could deal with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	6. Small Roasted Birds With Legumes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ... in which we get a brief overview of what people in and around Beorunna's Well like to eat, as well as a taste of trouble to come...

For the second time, Hulda heard a sizzling sound followed by a 'squawk'.  
Zan had the munchies and was targeting songbirds with precision-spells; his bodyguard left the path the group was following to brave a patch of nettles and pick up a small, electrocuted thrush.  
  
”Why don't you eat a pigeon, if you're so hungry?” Hulda asked the wizard, as he got the bird handed to him. It was a good thing that Fundinn was off to Silverymoon, she figured, or the thought of being zapped and eaten would trigger an early moult in the poor thing.  
  
”The answer is threefold,” Zan announced with some flair. “Firstly, you've got to keep it sporty – pigeons are fat and slow. Besides, they need to be small if I want to be able to cook them without scorching the outside, and leaving the inside raw,” he explained. “Lastly, I do love me some thrush – better than partridge, even. I wonder if the feeling is mutual...” Casually and with an experienced hand, he started plucking the bird: “Loves me, loves me not...”  
  
Soon, the air began smelling of roasted fowl. Hulda had eaten nothing but stale crackers for breakfast, and felt her mouth starting to water. When she cast a careful glance over her shoulder for the third time, Zan caught on and opened his hands a bit.   
  
“Drumstick?”  
  
Tiny flames still played round his fingers, and droplets of hot fat clung to his knuckles when Hulda carefully helped herself to a wee little leg.  
  
”I've never seen anyone use magic... in such a way, before,” she admitted, weighing her words. Magic was serious business after all, precious enough to require being put to good use. Her snack didn't taste half bad, though.  
  
”You mean 'in such a frivolous way'?” Zan guessed correctly, not sounding cross or insulted in the least. “Sister – this is the best use of the _'Burning Hands'_ spell to date..! It lets me seal in the moist and the flavour, and I saved us the dirty dishes. Not to mention I'd rather use it on a thrush than on a person, thank you very much.” He paused to lick the grease off his thumb and index, and suckle on a bone before flicking it into the forest. “Ah – culinary bliss is what it is. You know, a body like this needs good maintenance and better food; preferably at regular intervals, mm-mmm.”  
  
Hulda grinned around her leg of thrush, and moved it to the other corner of her mouth.  
  
”Harald, my brother says something quite like that whenever it's Pickle Day.”  
  
Zan regarded her with skepticism.  
  
”There's no such thing,” he said at length. Hulda responded with a half-shrug:  
  
”He invented it. Had to, or every day would be Pickle Day. He thrives on the things... Aren't we the first of the month, today?”  
  
”Today's the Day of the Pickle, then? Such portent,” Zan jested. “Augathra the Mad would agree. Oh, there we are,” he pointed, and looking ahead, Hulda could make out the first of the crooked houses of Beorunna's Well.

 

* * *

  
She got to borrow Zan's bodyguard, so they could inquire in the inn about the false priest's whereabouts; she was, she admitted, still a bit scared of the girl with the crossbow. The wizard took it on him to go and negotiate the price of some horses, which they would certainly need to find and stop the Necromancer in time, should he choose to start his ritual already tonight – after all, Hulda had observed, Selûne would be waning, close to be completely gone from the sky: a moon people called the Sickle. You didn't have to be a Necromancer to link that to death and destruction.  
  
No sooner had Hulda entered the town square, or something round and off-green came flying her way, making a wet, crunchy-mushy sound as it bounced off her head. Less-than-fresh lettuce clung to her hair and forehead, and Marek raised his shield just in time to intercept the potato that was headed for her face.  
More vegetables, as well as a single, stale loaf of bread were thrown under a continuing barrage of curses and insults at the address of Selûne and her servants. A large Uthgardt, nearly blowing steam in his anger, approached Hulda with big, determined strides.   
  
Marek's hand went to the hilt of his sword, but she stayed him – although he looked quite different without the abundant beer-foam on his beard and mustache, the burly man was definitely one of the patrons Hulda had spoken to in the inn, the other day.  
  
”What game are you playing, huh?” he roared at her, “We know who you are!” he stabbed Hulda's holy symbol of Selûne with a finger the size of a pork sausage. “How dare you fill our children's heads with garbage like that? Where are they off to, huh? My sister's mad with worry over her daughters leaving without a word like that!”  
  
”Who'll look after my old mother when my cousins are all burning candles and plucking harps in some temple – you tell me!” another chimed in, and threw two more potatoes. He had a whole arm-full, Hulda noticed.  
  
Marek got sprayed with juice and pips when a tomato that was aimed at him impacted with the top edge of his round shield. The frown he wore by default now deepened slightly – whether by worry or anger, Hulda could only guess.  
  
”Could we please talk about this – without the vegetables?" she said. "If you want to see your daughters and cousins back in one piece, we -”  
  
”You threaten us?!” the big man suddenly had both his hands on Hulda, but Marek stepped in and hooked him full on the nose.   
  
Taking a step back and regarding the hand he'd reflexively brought to his face to check for blood, the Uthgardt grinned before giving the Untheri swordsman an appraising look.  
  
An incoming, ham-sized fist to the ribs was narrowly deflected by the bodyguard, but the nigh simultaneous blow to the head had Marek hitting the dust at the barbarian's feet. A cheer rose up from the townsfolk all around them, and the big man spat on the ground.  
  
”Threats and insults! I expected nothing less from thieves letting in with drow-elves and Southerners!” he huffed.  
  
Hulda felt a jolt travel up her spine.  
  
”...Drow-elves? Are you sure? The drow are-”  
  
”One emptied my snares!” an old man yelled. “I wonder how they'll deal with my wolf traps, next! Demon scum is what they are!” From inside the crowd, more voices picked up:  
  
”I saw a dark elf steal milk!”  
  
”My mushroom-pie was stolen right out of the oven!”  
  
”There's been a misunderstanding,” Hulda tried to explain to the barbarian townsman. “We're not in league with any drow! ...And the priest acts outside of the will of the Church of Selûne; in fact, what we're trying to do is prevent anyone from getting hurt...!”  
  
A rapidly approaching, whistling sound ended in a sharp gasp from the Uthgardt when a bodkin-arrowhead suddenly protruded from his skull.  
Hulda yelped as he collapsed right on top of her, the arrow meant for her hitting the dead townsman in the left shoulder.  
  
Next to her, Marek raised his shield just in time to prevent taking an arrow in the chest, while a second nailed his sandal to the ground right between two toes and made him trip.  
They spared each other the briefest look of alarm, before helping one another on their feet and making for the nearest sheltered corner. Arrows rained down onto the assembled Black Lions, and over the cries for help, the barking of orders and the groans of the wounded, a horn-blast sounded from within the forest. Soon, it was answered with similar signals on all sides of the town.  
  
Beorunna's Well was under attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	7. Bloody Beorunna's Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beorunna's Well is under siege! But by whom or what? One thing is certain: everybody has a talent, whether that is Logistics and Catering or getting hurt _really really bad_.

”Do you have any strategic experience or training?” Marek asked Hulda, as they crouched behind a bearskin mounted on a tanning-rack.  
She shook her head, and looked around.  
  
The overhanging roof above them provided some measure of cover from the archers, who had to be hiding somewhere in the trees, seeing as they were firing at any man and woman in the town square as if at fish in a barrel.  
  
”I do,” a small voice piped up from behind Hulda. She and Marek turned around to face Pooky, the imp. Somehow, he'd made his way out of the Nine Hells and back to Toril. “I was in charge of an entire division for four hundred years in the Bloodwars,” he said.  
  
Marek had his sword trained on the critter's nose in a blink, making the wretch squeak and clench up so abruptly he nearly leapt three feet up in the air.  
Hulda pushed the bodyguard's sword-arm down again, and stepped between him and the tiny fiend.  
  
”What division, exactly?” she inquired, finding it hard to believe a mere imp could be in charge of anything bigger than a marching band.  
  
Pooky's eyes held hers for a brief moment.  
  
”... Logistics and Catering,” he admitted, before continuing: “...But that only means I had plenty of opportunity to study militaristic decision-making, and live to evaluate the outcomes! Look, what you need here is a phalanx of tough-bodied fiends, say barbazus or cornugons to draw enemy hostility towards the center and allow for skirmish-tactics from the defenders. If you call on our master Orgolorth now, I'll even throw in a spellcaster or two to help provoke the beleaguering forces.”  
  
”What is -” Marek began, but Hulda hushed him.  
  
”Pooky, did you really think I'd sell my soul for _more_ devils here on the Prime?” she asked. The imp scratched his nose as he looked at his feet.  
  
”Ask it if it knows what we're dealing with,” Marek suggested. “Their numbers and locations.”  
  
”I did manage to get a good look at them on my way here, but that information has a price,” Pooky flatly stated, before biting back a yelp and starting to dance in place.  
  
”Oh my, it seems I have put my boot on your tail,” Hulda observed. “I could remove it, but it'll cost you.”  
  
”Fine! Fine! It's lycanthropes – they're really tough so if I may suggest you reconsider the barbazus and cornugons? With those were-creatures' regenerating powers there's no way you could – ouch!”  
  
Pooky started hopping up and down again as Hulda switched her left foot for her right one.  
  
”We'll be the judge of that – now don't take all day. Their numbers?” she insisted.  
  
”Two dozen north, another score south – on foot and in the treetops!” Pooky spilled. “They'll want to engage the Uthgardt in melee before they gather their wits and organise their defenses: the ones in the trees are probably scaling the rooftops as we speak...”  
  
The slightest amount of dust falling from the overhang above their heads caused Marek to raise his shield just in time – a monstrous claw got pushed aside, and the warrior helped the attacker off the roof by applying his weight to a handful of its speckled fur.  
The creature, unfortunately, landed on all fours and ready to pounce – no coincidence, Hulda realised, since this one resembled a feline more than anything. An identical twin landed next to it, snarling viciously.  
  
Calling upon the Moonmaiden, Hulda tried to dishearten and chase the over-sized bobcats away – her holy symbol of Selûne shone with a silver light, and caused one of the creatures to bolt for cover.  
The Moonmaiden's magic didn't get a hold of the other one, unfortunately, as the cat jumped nearly over Marek's shield and started clawing at him between bouts of angry hisses.  
  
”Mind its teeth - Lycanthropy is contageous!” Hulda warned the swordsman as she unhooked Pinky. She was going to have to aim carefully if she wanted to hit the cat and not the man.  
  
Her first blow missed, and the critter used Marek's shield as a jumping board to simultaneously floor the Untheri and launch itself at Hulda. She jabbed at her attacker, the spiked head of her morningstar connecting with the beast's chin so hard she drew blood; a swipe from its claw across Hulda's cheek returned the favour.  
As if pulled up by an invisible string, the cat jumped up, paws akimbo, and landed right on Hulda's chest. A frost-beam fired from close range did nothing but nip the edge of the animal's ear, and Hulda desperately tried to keep her vambraced forearms between her throat and the flashing teeth.  
  
Then: a squeal, and the bobcat was dragged off of her by its scruff and impaled on Marek's black sword. The twitching body, now transforming into that of an unassuming elf, was unceremoniously pushed aside, and Hulda nodded her thanks when the bodyguard assessed her injuries.  
  
”I'm alright,” she managed, though the slashes on her cheek throbbed and stung.  
Pooky came out of hiding, and kicked the corpse with his tiny imp feet.  
  
”We should find Zan,” Marek suggested, scanning the surroundings with a worried look.  
  
Black Lion hunters and warriors, men and women alike, had returned from their homesteads with weapons and were returning fire to the beleaguering monsters, or meeting them in hand-to-hand combat on the slatted wood and reed roofs. The air was thick with war-cries, arrows and crossbow quarrels and the occasional falling body.  
Hulda nodded.  
  
”Let's stay under the awnings then,” she said.  
  
  


* * *

 

Making their way across verandas and past storefronts, which were now all quickly being shuttered, Hulda and Marek, who led the way, thought they could make out a construction meant to resemble a stable, even though it was hard telling in this crooked town of haphazardly constructed shacks and lean-tos.  
  
”He was going to haggle for horses, right?” Hulda asked, receiving a nod from the Untheri in answer:  
  
”...Yes, although there's always a chance he passed by a food stall on his way th-”  
  
Just as Marek neared the edge of the veranda they were on, something furry swung into view and kicked him so hard in the chin he spun around once before collapsing on a pile of bagged potatoes.  
With a thud, the lycanthrope landed on the deck. Ears like a wolf's perked up from a grey-brown mane, and a bushy tail struck the creature's flanks in glee. The attempt at letting Selûne's light scare him off availed nothing, and the monster kicked Marek's sword out of his reach as it approached Hulda. She could deflect a paw with her weapon but took another clear on the nose before being grappled and thrown right on top of Marek and the potatoes.  
  
She felt blood bubble up when she groaned, blinking and with her ears ringing. When the werewolf entered her field of vision again, it was with Marek's tall sword raised high over its head. Hulda shrieked when it came down, point first with the clear intent of skewering both her and the bodyguard underneath her. Then, suddenly: a shadow and a metallic 'boing' when Marek averted the savage attack with his bronze shield, and flipped Hulda off of him.  
  
With his dagger's cross guard, he attempted to wrestle his sword from the lycanthrope's grasp. Muscles strained under tanned skin and fur alike, but the beast growled and started biting. Hulda, jumping the creature from behind and using her morningstar's handle to choke it, couldn't prevent the monster from drawing blood, even though Marek kept stabbing him frantically.  
  
She lost her grip on Pinky when she got grabbed and flung in the middle of the street, gravel and dirt finding its way into her tunic and her hair, and a sharp pain lancing up her spine where she'd hit the ground. She was unable to get up, and rapid-firing shafts of cold from her prone position didn't suffice to keep the wolf-man from coming her way. When he eventually stood over her, he flashed her a grin still wet with blood.  
  
A shrill hooting like a screech-owl's call reached her ears, and the next moment, the lycanthrope was groping and flailing at a tiny, red creature that had found a place high up on the monster's back where it could taunt and stab him unhindered with its barbed tail-stinger. Pooky gnawed on the wolf's ear in his battle-frenzy as the beast started frothing at the mouth, and finally keeled over.  
  
”Careful with that blood of yours, Bloodbearer,” the imp reproached, as he dusted himself off and regarded Hulda a brief moment. “It is very valuable to Master Orgolorth, after all.”  
  
He squeaked when Hulda picked him up and stuffed him under her arm, limping back towards the place where Marek had rolled onto his stomach, and was trying to staunch a profusely bleeding wound. Hulda hastened to apply a generous dose of Healing and received a grateful look from the panting bodyguard in thanks.  
  
”Here,” Hulda said, after she'd rid herself of her own awful back-ache and nosebleed, and pulled a sprig of wolfsbane from the pouch on her belt, “...in case you got infected. Best to chew it while we make a run for those stables.”  
  
  


* * *

  
  
No sooner had they reached the middle of the street, or Hulda heard a smack and a grunt, and turned around to notice that Marek had fallen flat on his face, one foot caught in a rapidly growing clump of weeds. Lycanthropes with spears approached on a trot, and Pooky immediately winged himself to safety while Hulda moved in and flashed her holy symbol.  
  
The beasts cowered, unable to come any closer, but Hulda had a hard time dancing around the groping vegetation while trying to cast a spell, and by the time that she managed to successfully halt the plants' advance and keep them from smothering her and Marek both, a troop of no less than six, _other_ were-creatures were staring them down.  
  
”Your puny spells are no match for a shaman's,” one of them growled, and all six muzzles had toothy grins on display as the spellcaster started drawing esoteric patterns in the air with a twisted staff.  
  
These grins quickly disappeared when a fiery orb the size of a hay bale bowled the shaman off his feet and set his fur alight. Near immediately, explosions left and right caused the lycanthropes to yelp and howl, the scent of their burning pelts making Hulda's eyes water.  
  
”Thank you for standing so close together!” Zan greeted his opponents, not so much charging as well as strolling into the fray. The wizard spared his bodyguard and Hulda a wink and a smile. “Come on, get up now - I bet the stable-owner three fast horses that we can clear the town of these pests before the noontide...!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	8. Black Blood! Black Blood Everywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The attack of the Furry Fandom proves a tough battle indeed for Hulda & Friends, but at least everyone is well-rested. Or are they?

Marek ran off towards a lycanthrope he'd spotted, and who was trying to sneak up on them by circling a building; his employer covered his retreat by redirecting his enormous flaming sphere so that it took away any desire from the other beast-men to come nearer. Hulda, on her part, ruined the enemy's attempt at a coordinated ranged attack by unleashing a well-timed gale of magical wind that sent their arrows flying in all directions. Were-creatures that got too close, she chased away with Selûne's blessing.  
  
”Say, sister – are these all natural-born lycanthropes or infected ones?” Zan asked, motioning for her to keep casting spells while he summoned a second over-sized globe of fire.  
  
”The People of the Black Blood are mostly born from one or two lycanthrope parents, though it is hard to say because they don't exist as one, orderly tribe... Why do you ask? You don't seem to have any problems killing them off either way,” Hulda replied.  
  
The wizard shrugged.  
  
”Oh, no, it's more of a 'the more you know' sort of thing; travel broadening your mind and all that,” he said, spotting a felled lycanthrope getting back up on his feet off where his first ball of fire had made a real mess. Zan huffed, and took him out with a long-ranged lightning-spell. “This regenerating nonsense sure is annoying,” he grumbled.  
  
”What is?” Marek asked as he joined them again, breathing hard but looking unscathed, though it was hard to tell with all the grime that had accumulated on his gear and clothes.  
  
”The fact that their wounds heal so fast they're harder to kill,” Hulda yelled over the sound of the whooshing flames as the first fire-orb that Zan had conjured passed them by again.  
  
She saw the ever-frowning bodyguard's eyes shift left and slightly upward, before he turned around and went back the way he came on the double.  
  
”Important notification...!” Pooky's voice rang in Hulda's ear as the imp clumsily landed on her head.  
  
Next to her, Zan flinched at the sight of a Baatezu dropping down from the sky like that. The Evoker whacked the imp off of her with an overhead swipe of his staff and barked a spell of Dismissal without waiting for Pooky to finish his sentence or for Hulda to explain.  
The signature smell of sulfur wafted in her face as the tiny fiend was forcibly shunted back into his homeworld. She sneezed.  
  
”Looks like the Fur Folk have a Summoner,” Zan grunted, looking around in search for the non-existent specialist. “...I don't like it. It starts with little runts like that one and before you know it, a skimpily clad she-devil is sneaking up on you.”  
  
”No it's me,” Hulda said, making Zan spin around on his heels and stare at her. She tried to rephrase:  
  
“The imp is mine, I mean. His name is Pooky, and he sort of follows me around.”  
  
Zan's expression of confusion lasted a heartbeat before turning into one of pain and surprise: as he staggered, Hulda could see the shaft of the arrow that had found his left buttock. Something about the bright yellow feather it'd been fletched with spelled trouble, Hulda thought. With a quick snatch, she rid the wizard of the hindering projectile, and held it up to him.  
  
”Pretty,” he said, before his eyes rolled upward and his knees buckled.  
  
Hulda was left with an unconscious mage and two derelict flaming spheres wandering off at a leisurely pace before diminishing and disappearing altogether.  
Worse, the lycanthropes had achieved the upper hand in their fight with the Black Lions, and were starting to bash in the doors of the town's homesteads to root out the villagers who hid there. The cries of small children reached Hulda's ears, and instinct had her run in that direction with her weapon in hand before she changed her mind, and went back to try and wake Zan up.  
With the light of Selûne and her offensive spells already largely depleted, she couldn't hope to effectively turn the tide of battle on her own.  
  
She knelt beside the floored wizard, and would have administered a purging spell, but reconsidered and tried to bring him back around by slapping his cheeks instead: it was best to hold on to what magic she still had left a little longer.  
  
Another yellow-feathered arrow appeared – this time, in Hulda's own thigh. Using one hand to remove it, she cast her purging spell with the other. She could feel the poison's effects briefly cloud her mind and vision before her magic took hold and cleared her head again.  
  
The faintest creak, not unlike a chair groaning under a heavy-set person, made Hulda turn.  
Flinching back from the arrow-point not a hand-width removed from her nose, she felt her heart skip a beat – fortune proved in her favour when she scooted back and caused the were-wolf archer, who didn't know he had one foot on her skirt, to nearly lose his balance when the cloth was tugged from underneath him.  
  
Hulda's hand with the morningstar flew up and knocked the bow out of the creature's hands; a second swing hit nothing but dust, and when the monster stepped hard on the weapon's handle, Hulda saw herself disarmed.  
  
The monster's claw wrapped around her neck like a vice, and Hulda struggled like a bug on a pin to keep the fanged maw from coming too close. Her groping hands found something other than fur alone, however – the lycanthrope didn't suspect the arrow until it stuck good and deep between his ribs.  
  
He dropped her right on her tailbone – and next to her trusted Pinky. A tap to the head proved unnecessary, she noticed: her arrow had been fletched with yellow, and like Zan, the werewolf had passed out.  
  
Snatching as many of the poison arrows as she could, Hulda scrambled back over to Zan on all fours, and slapped him some more – she got hopeful when her treatment elicited an annoyed groan, but then she got the wizard's balled-up fist against her ear, and he just turned on his side and snored on.  
  
There was a series of rapidly approaching thuds on the slanted roof directly behind, and Hulda spun around to strike at the one who sought to jump her; her morningstar connected, and her target, which turned out to be naught but a head, sailed down the street and bounced off a windowsill once before landing in a discarded basket.  
Up on the roof, Marek stood over a decapitated body that was now quickly bleeding out into the drain.  
  
”Zan – is he...?” the bodyguard asked as he made his way down, fearful. Hulda reassured him.  
  
”Not dead, and not quite helpless yet, either,” she said, feeling her ear. “Let's pick him up and slowly back away, before those lycanthropes start counting their losses. We might make it to the forest yet.”  
  
Marek nodded and sheathed his sword, but when they each grabbed a hold of the unconscious wizard, Hulda saw him struggle to keep a grip, and finally stumble and keel over.  
  
”Are you hurt?” she asked. She might have enough healing energies left for one bad case, but after that, no other.  
  
”No, I – my legs, and my arms, they...” Marek struggled to explain.  
  
Hulda could see he was sweating, and when he raised his hands to clutch his head, she saw that they were shaking like leaves.  
  
”...The wolfsbane! Oh, Selûne curse those side-effects! Tell me, is your mouth dry? Do you have heartburn?”  
  
”Like I swallowed one of Zan's fireballs,” the Untheri affirmed as he let himself be pulled back on his feet – not without effort.  
  
”Step away from the wizard,” a snarling voice commanded.  
  
Hulda noticed a squad of four lycanthropes having just arrived at the scene, all of them carrying scimitars. Something about their bearing betrayed confidence and a methodical discipline, and therefore, more likely than not, martial training.  
  
”Hulda,” Marek said, eyeing the group, “I _may_ not be able to take all of those hostiles out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	9. Cramped Quarters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some lycanthropes are not like the others. Whether that means good news or not for Hulda and her friends, is for the reader to find out.

A one-eyed wolf-man, who appeared to be the one in charge, spoke.  
  
”Which one?”  
  
”The male. He took out four, his wizard friend six,” the lycanthrope to his left said.  
  
”And the woman?” the first one asked, turning his lone eye on Hulda.  
  
”A healer of sorts. Non-druidic. She keeps repelling us with her magic, and it seems she stabbed our brother with one of his own knock-out arrows, too,” the other said, with a nudge of his head towards the comatose werewolf further down the street.  
  
The lycanthrope leader's gaze remained on Hulda.  
  
”Kill her then,” he said.  
  
As one, the beasts charged.  
Marek, despite his wolfsbane-poisoning, had thrown himself in their path, shield and shoulder leading, before Hulda could react. The sword he brought around with a grunt did little to harm any of them however, and he got a swipe of a fist to the head for trying.  
  
Hulda, having stepped up just in time to stand back-to-back with the warrior was the only thing that kept the man from being floored. She narrowly parried a slash from a scimitar, and dodged the second one. Marek roared to get his sword-arm to obey him, but his sluggish thrusts were hardly enough to keep his share of the lycanthropes occupied. Hulda accosted the wolfman on her own left side with a snarl, too – but swung her morningstar a split moment later than she'd announced it. The creature fell for the deceit and got decked.  
  
”Ah, so it was cunning, and not just mercy that put our archer to sleep,” Hulda's remaining sparring partner said. His single eye glittered when he took a step back and held his weapon trained on her throat. “We'll keep you yet. Lay down your weapon.”  
  
”Over my dead body,” Hulda defied him, but the wolf-man chided her.  
  
”Interesting choice of words... Don't you mean, 'his body'?”  
  
Hulda followed his gaze to where Marek lay sprawled on the ground. The lycanthropes had elected to take him out without bloodshed, but now their scimitars hovered over him like executioners' axes.  
Hulda's morningstar fell from her hand.  
  
With the tip of the leader's own weapon tickling her back, she was directed to the town square, Zan and Marek being dragged off in that direction already.  
  
”What's going to happen now?” she asked.  
  
”First, we find accommodations for you three,” the one-eyed lycanthrope said. “After that: judgement.”  


 

* * *

  
  
The 'accommodations' turned out to be woven cages from the Black Lions' own fur-trappers, and Hulda was made to take place in the smallest of the three, hands tied behind her and her knees nearly up to her chin. Her holy symbol of Selûne and all her stuff were confiscated, down to her cloak and boots, which the lycanthropes discovered were infused with magic. Her two companions were likewise stuffed into a cage and stacked like fowl on a market.  
  
Marek stirred and uttered a tired groan when Zan's cage was put on top of his. The Evoker, too, came back round.  
  
”What did I miss?” he asked.  
  
”It seems we've been spared... We're the only ones left alive, of this town,” Hulda said, the horror and sadness of the situation descending on her in full only now.  
Wherever they were, the missing virgins were the last of the Black Lion clan... but for how long?  
  
There was fidgeting and a slew of muttered curses when the wizard tried to get on his good side, and found that the cages didn't allow for much wriggling room.  
  
”Eh,” he said after a while, “good thing the one with pants is on top, aye, Marek?”  
  
The bodyguard offered a morose ' _mmm_ ' in answer.  
  
A she-wolf archer passed them by, rattling the cages' wooden spokes with the bottom end of her bow.  
  
”Feeling comfortable in there? If these were good enough for the animals of the forest, they ought to suffice for the likes of you,” she said, and spat in the dirt.  
  
”Is it technically still an insult if I call that one a bitch?” Zan asked when she'd left.  
  
”Look,” Marek pointed as well as he could.  
  
From a side street, more lycanthropes entered the town square, dragging a badly wounded Uthgardt man along. He groaned when he was dropped in front of the werewolf leader.  
  
”Is this what has become of the fierce and independent Black Lion chieftain? You've fattened up since you developed that taste for coin, you deplorable cretin,” the one-eyed wolf said, and then he, and all the other lycanthropes assembled, abandoned their animal-shapes and assumed humanoid form.  
  
Next to her, Hulda could see Zan blink in confusion.  
  
”... Is this coincidence, or...?”  
  
Hulda regarded the enemy. They were elves, one and all, and their contemptuous scowls and disgusted looks towards their prisoners spoke volumes.  
  
”Okay, I was wrong,” Hulda said, “...these aren't the People of the Black Blood.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	10. No-one Expects The Eldreth Veluuthra!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The following is a chapter containing several little morsels of Forgotten Realms lore, as well as large sticks up in regrettable places. Will the party be able to use diplomacy to change a mind already made up, or are more drastic methods needed?

Crunching, whooshing sounds reached Hulda's ears – an elf with a cape of leaves strode through the town, throwing acorn-sized things through the windows of the Black Lions' houses. Behind him, adult oak and chestnut trees appeared, bursting through the roofs like mushrooms through dead foliage. The town was turning into a forest.  
  
The elf leader, now wearing a dun vest and leggings and an eyepatch shaped like an ivy-leaf, turned the Black Lion chieftain on his back with a nudge of his boot.  
  
”Such a crude and destructive race you are... We tolerated you when you still foraged, and didn't take more from these ancient and noble woods than you needed. Now, for taking the trees to erect these... horrible constructions, and for killing each and every animal whose skin you could barter for petty baubles, the Eldreth Veluuthra condemns you.”  
The elf raised his scimitar. “See now the Victorious Blade of the People -”  
  
Hulda looked away when the weapon came down. She heard scraping when the body was removed from the scene.  
  
”Am I getting this right? Are we held captive by _racist elves_?” Zan whispered.   
  
Hulda nodded.  
  
”I didn't think their organisation would have any lycanthropes in their ranks... Anyhow, it's a miracle we're still alive. The Eldreth Veluuthra wish to see the entire human race expunged from the world... Whatever they're planning for us, it likely won't include our continued survival.”  
  
”Well, there's the instigator of this farce,” Zan motioned at the elf with the eyepatch, who came walking towards them. “We can ask him, if he's not above answering questions from someone who'd burn his lily-white ass if given a -”  
  
Zan's grumbled threat ended in a grunt when his cage was casually tipped over. The leader of the Eldreth Veluuthra turned his attention on Hulda, instead.  
  
”You're foreigners, so your only sin, aside from killing my men, is humanity. For this, you'll still die, but not by my hand. Since you seem quite capable warriors all, you're to be delivered to the People of the Black Blood, in the Moonwood,” he said, cleaning his scimitar with a tip of Hulda's skirt before driving it back into its sheath.  
  
”I thought the Eldreth Veluuthra operated alone,” Hulda said.  
  
”We do,” the elf confirmed, “we only have a standing agreement that tribute for their High Hunts must be given, in return for their gift of Lycanthropy, and for their distance in our mission to cleanse the woods of each and all human presence. Coexistence is not impossible for us, despite what you may think.”  
  
”I remain unconvinced of your efforts,” Zan's most diplomatic voice came from somewhere behind Marek. “I, for example, am a genuine pleasure to coexist with, once you get to know me.”  
  
”You're a wizard,” the elf leader said. “Humans of yore learned Arcane magic from the elves – only to exhaust the Weave and draw the Phaerimm out. The fertile lands of Anauroch were murdered by your people's wizards and their hubris.”  
  
”Do I look Netherese to you?!” Zan yelled. “And besides, what you say there happened more than a thousand years ago...!”  
  
”The land still remembers – and the Victorious Blade of the People will suffer no repeat of the crime,” the elf said, with finality in his voice.  
  
”Get just a little closer you backwards-bred little righteous twat, and I'll show you crime...!” Zan threatened, wringing his bonds.  
  
The leader of the Eldreth Veluuthra regarded the wizard, crumpled up in his little cage, with deep contempt.  
  
”I'd remove your tongue, but the Black Blood will need you intact if you're to be of use to them in their next hunt.” he motioned a fellow elf over. “Gag this one. And the woman – we don't want them casting spells, or bothering us with their noise as well as their presence...”  
  
”Hear me out, first!” Hulda tried. “I'm a moon witch – sure you know that Selûne is held in high regard by the Seldarine? If coexistence is negotiable, why harm Selûne's servant?”   
She tried to turn her head so that she might catch the elf's gaze; get through to him. “I have elven friends in Silverymoon, I speak your language! I dance in the forests, I don't cut them down! As for my companions, they've come a long way to track down an evil that threatens this entire area. I cannot hope to deal with the threat alone, I need these two men by my side! I understand why you're so angry and hateful, I really do, but if you're willing to set aside your differences and strike a deal with the Black Blood for a common goal, why not with us?"  
  
”Oh, I'm sure you have a lovely personality, and an excellent eye for character if your goddess deemed you worthy,” the elf leader said, as he got a strip of cloth handed to him. “But one right does not make good the wrongs of your people. It was interesting to hear you try though,” he said, and applied the knotted rag to shut her up.   
  
Hulda could feel that this gag was going to make her jaws ache for a good long time, and neither did Zan look too happy about being treated the same.  
  
However, there was some hint of amusement in the Untheri's dark eyes when the elves had turned their backs on them. Coming from a man curled upside-down in a too-tiny cage, moments away from being carried off to a cult of vicious man-eating lycanthropes, this could only mean the Evoker was up to something...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	11. Quite Fitting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If the cage fits, wear it. Is it Karma, or is it a wizard's vanity that will challenge the dire circumstances Hulda and her friends find themselves in? Kossuth for one thinks burning _calories_ is a good thing, too.

With a pole threaded through the hoops on top of the cages, Hulda, Zan and Marek were carried off into the woods by the Eldreth Veluuthra. The elves shared rations while walking, and engaged in muttered conversation. Hulda knew the Elven Tongue well enough to make out that there was supposed to be a rendezvous with kinsmen and their giant eagle mounts on a hilltop nearby, but apparently, the eagle-riders were delayed. She kept her hopes up that the cages would be put down on the ground soon, long enough for her to get rid of her sea-sickness: her cage swinging to and fro on the rhythm of the elves marching through the forest for hours was asking the impossible of her stomach.  
The wood-dwellers kept good pace, however, and as if that wasn't enough, the sky quickly became overcast and treated them on a steady and plentiful rain that refused to subside even as they reached the low, flat hill overlooking the valley.  
The elves set to readying tents and shelters, and digging up stashes of weapons and provisions they'd cleverly hidden under flat rocks and boulders. A tarp was thrown over the cages, keeping out the rain but doing nothing about Hulda and her friends being already soaked through and through.  
  
”I'm going to die,” she groaned, but it came out all vowels through the rag that covered her mouth.  
  
She tried to shift her legs to give her stomach some more room, which caused her back to scrape over the cage bottom rather painfully, and her knee to hit her eye hard enough to make it water.  
  
”I have the most horrible itch on my shoulder,” Marek said with a sigh, and next to him, Zan began fidgeting and struggling again.  
  
”Left or right?” the Evoker asked suddenly, bits of scorched rope falling from his wrists as he removed his own gag.  
  
”Left, please,” his bodyguard replied unphased.  
  
Hulda felt a renewed admiration for how well these two men knew one another. The wizard reached through the spokes of his cage to rid his friend of his itch before letting himself out.  
  
”Kossuth curse these savages, I can't feel my feet,” he grumbled, and examined his toes as he twiddled them.  
  
”Eh,” Hulda tried, not wanting to sound pushy but not too keen on staying folded double as she was, either.  
  
A wrong movement made her other knee acquaint itself with her sore eye, as well.  
  
”We shouldn't talk,” Marek told Zan, as he was assisted out of his own cage, and tried to catch a glimpse through a slit in the canvas.  
  
“Eh-eweh?” Hulda insisted, but Zan hushed her, nodded at the warrior and poked his head out from under the tarp.  
  
He recoiled, and signalled for everyone to listen – outside, footsteps approached. Hulda thought she recognised one of the voices conversing quietly in Elven: it belonged to the woman who'd taunted them when they'd been just locked up, back in Beorunna's Well. She sounded concerned:  
  
”I don't understand,” she said, “why do now what you had a chance to do all day?”  
  
”Captain Esfandiar wishes to see the sick prisoner hale, to better impress the leader of the People of the Black Blood,” the other, male voice sounded. “I told him I needed to assess the nature of his ailment first.”  
  
”And?”  
  
”Two poisons course within him – I've already told as much to the captain, and likely, he will not probe further when I relay to him that the man has perished.”  
  
”He died? But how can you tell if -” the woman argued, but then fell silent. The footsteps halted. “I see,” she said.  
  
Hulda thought she could guess at what the other person had implied, too.  
  
”I've been told he killed four of us,” her partner in conversation spoke, “I will not dishonour our fallen by wasting Silvanus' grace on the race we've sworn to eradicate. Besides, those unholy People of the Black Blood are nearly all _biir_ , half-human garbage, too: if we give them two prizes instead of three, that's what they'll have to be content with. Consider these things, before you consider informing the captain.”  
  
Silence dragged on.  
  
“Don't you have somewhere else to be? The eagles have landed,” the male said at length.  
  
”Yes, Forest Master. I suppose I might be asked to assist. Good night,” the woman said, and her footsteps receded.  
  
Hulda could see Zan count down on his right hand, the left one gripping the tarp tightly while on the other side, the one who had been called the Forest Master approached at a steady pace.  
When the Untheri wizard ran out of fingers, the canvas was flung aside, and the unsuspecting elf was grabbed by an ankle and yanked underneath. Zan quickly muffled his victim by throwing his well-fed, well-cared for body on the man's face and pounded away with his fist until the elf was out cold.  
  
”Wheuehueh,” Hulda said, watching her companions fold the Forest Master double and cram him into Marek's cage.  
  
”Why yes, I do think his leaf cloak looks familiar,” Zan told her.  
  
He dipped a hand in the elf's belt pouch and pulled out an acorn.  
  
“Aha – now this is bound to get interesting...!”  
  
”Talking about 'bound',” a familiar – literally – voice squawked, “why is my mistress pettered and conpined to a cage?”  
  
Fundinn ducked his head and shook the rain off his feather coat with vigor. Hulda got spattered generously.  
  
”Priorities!” Zan objected at the accusation. “First, my bodyguard had an itch, and then that elf came along...”  
  
”How did you get in here?” Marek asked Fundinn. The familiar looked the swordsman up and down.  
  
”Punny you should ask - how did _you_ get _out_?”  
  
”Magic,” Zan said, and fluttered his fingers in front of the bird.  
  
Hulda could see him roll his beady eyes at that.  
  
”Whatepper,” he said, and hopped over to Hulda to start pulling and pecking at the rope that tied her wrists to the back of the cage.  
  
”Ah, yes, I was about to go and free Hulda – no, go ahead, be my guest,” Zan said, peering out into the rain once more. “Marek – ten counts, then to me. Lots of blubber there for us to crawl through so don't wear your best...!”  
  
With these words, the wizard slid out from under the tarp and out of sight. His bodyguard moved to take his place.  
  
”How's your wolfsbane poisoning?” Hulda asked him, as soon as she could remove her gag.  
  
”Wolpsbane pois... Selûne sape us, I leape you alone por a single day...!” Fundinn muttered under his breath.  
  
Marek held up his hands – they still trembled slightly.  
  
”It's getting better,” he said.  
  
Hulda wondered if she should confront him with what the elf had said – she knew he had meant Marek's tekkil addiction when he'd mentioned two poisons rather than one.  
She nodded at the warrior, who then slipped out into the rain to join his employer.  
Hulda sighed and undid the door of her cage. It was best to focus on escape and survival, first.  
  
Outside, in the mud, she found Zan and Marek lying flat on their stomachs just before a low rise crowned by a boulder. Behind it was the hilltop proper; somewhere among the hurriedly raised covers and tents would be where the elves had taken their weapons and magical gear.  
  
“Marek, if you'd oblige us,” Zan motioned.  
  
The swordsman elbowed himself over the rise, his wizard following immediately.  
  
”Stay close,” Hulda told Fundinn, who had been trying to keep the higher ground and didn't look all too keen on joining Hulda in her four inches of mud, which must be why he picked her bum as a perch, instead.  
  
”I plew all the way to Silperymoon and back; I beliepe I'm entitled to a bit op rest,” he said.  
  
”Sssh,” Hulda hushed him, and clambered over the rise as well and as fast as she could.  
  
She nearly plowed through the two Untheri, who lay there just around the corner gaping at a figure standing in the shadow of the boulder, a hand on the scimitar at her belt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	12. 'Good Kind' Does Not Equal 'Nice Kind'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Help from an unexpected source has reached our distressed companions, but it doesn't spell the end of trouble just yet: complications have arrived...

Three more, awful heartbeats later, it dawned on Hulda that that scimitar was going nowhere – the woman was as dead as a doornail. An elven lance driven through her ribcage from behind had killed her instantly, and now, with the butt end jammed into the soil, kept her propped up like a straw figure.  
  
”What in the blazing Abyss happened here?” Zan, next to and slightly underneath Hulda demanded.   
Hulda guessed the scene had shaken the otherwise unflappable wizard something fierce.  
  
”The spear is elven,” Marek observed. “Could it be an inside job?”  
  
”That, or the attacker found out where the elves keep their weapon stash,” Zan said.  
  
He gave the shaft a tug, and the corpse fell over with a wet thud. Hulda could see no other injuries on the woman – the spear-thrust had been executed cleanly and precisely.  
Fundinn left his vantage point on her buttocks to investigate something hidden in the wet grass.  
  
”Are those breadcrumbs?” Hulda asked, catching a glimpse of them before her familiar gobbled them all up. The bird clucked happily; he'd found more, a few hops away.  
  
”'It's pie,” he said.  
  
Zan, who'd gone through the elf's belongings and now presented Hulda with a slightly used spear, raised an eyebrow.  
  
”Fie?”   
  
Fundinn knew better than to argue with the wizard, Hulda could tell, but she noticed his annoyance all the same. With both Untheri in tow and the spear in hand, she crawled after her feathered friend, who kept finding morsels at regular intervals: someone had left them a trail of pie crumbs.  
  
It led them into the heart of the elven camp, making use of every shadow and every bit of concealment the terrain had to offer: Hulda and company snuck through a patch of prickly juniper, then underneath the cover of a pair of spruces and finally, giving the campfires and guard-posts a wide birth, up towards a lone tent set somewhat aside of the ones with elves in them, and which seemed quite well-secured.  
Someone had opened it up with a horizontal knife-slash, though, close to the ground. The escapees could enter easily enough, without having to risk standing up and drawing attention to themselves.  
  
Inside was a jumble of oiled leather bundles and wicker baskets – one of which held Hulda's magical bracers, boots and cloak. She sighed happily when she could slip her holy symbol over her head again, and feel the weight of Selûne's silver crescent slide towards its familiar spot on her sternum. Next, she started looking for Pinky, since it was not with her other belongings.  
Beside a wooden crate, she found the last morsel of pie – a baked mushroom cap, parsley and thyme still clinging to it.  
  
”Oh, Rhyl'lyn,” she grinned, making the boys' heads turn.  
  
”Pardon?” Marek, the nearest, who sat stuffing a leg in a heavily abused greave, blinked.   
  
Hulda wondered a moment about how to best summarise her history with the peculiar drow she'd met in Luskan, and how she'd made the link between him, the stolen mushroom pie in Beorunna's Well and the assassinated elf outside their cage-shelter.  
  
”We may have an ally,” she said at last, and held up her trophy.  
  
”That's a piece of mushroom,” Zan remarked, while Fundinn jumped up to snatch the thing and finish his meal.  
  
As the bird arched his neck this way and that to groom, and quite possibly spot more food, Hulda's eye caught a glint of something attached around his neck.  
  
”And just when, dear familiar, did you plan to tell me you're wearing Lady Meldrys' ring?” she asked, her hands on her hips.  
  
”Ah,” quacked the raven, “I had a mind to – as soon as I was suppiciently well-rested. The High Priestess entrusted me with this when she heard you were in por quite a conprontation. This healing ring is all we could get to you in a timely manner, so you better make it count,” he said, and bowed his head so Hulda could remove the jewel.  
  
The priceless gem-encrusted ring was proof that Meldrys was quite worried, and likely had forgotten about the ink on her apartment's door-handle too. Hulda slipped it on with a smile.  
  
”So, about the cooked mushroom,” Zan, from where he sat putting on his own magical charms and rings, pressed.   
  
It made Hulda snap to attention.  
  
”Oh! Well, it might be that a friend of mine has decided to help out...”  
  
Marek suddenly straightened.  
  
”The stolen mushroom-pie! ...Are you saying your friend's a dark elf? A _drow_?”  
  
”Don't worry, he's the good kind,” Hulda assured.  
  
The two men regarded one another at that.  
  
”... He's _dead_?” Zan exclaimed. He looked serious about it, too, Hulda saw.   
  
She wanted to address the matter, but picked up voices nearing their hide-out, and motioned for everyone to keep quiet.  
  
”When I gave the order to keep a close eye on the halfbreed and his retainer, I meant it,” an irate elf said as he ambled by. He'd lost some of his cool since last Hulda saw him, but it was definitely the one-eyed captain speaking: “We're losing precious time going after them and those females...!”  
  
A subordinate answered:  
  
”The retainer has proven hard to sniff out, sir. The Forest Master said his mind's eye was blind to him. If it weren't for the eagle-riders spotting him on the Uthgardt burial mound...”  
  
A sigh could be heard, even though the captain was eight strides or more away.  
  
”Another mage; terrific. If not a tomb-raider then for sure dabbling in the Necromantic... Has our esteemed Forest Master mentioned the specifics of his failed scrying attempts?”  
  
”That would be something best asked of him, sir,” the other one said.  
  
Footsteps changed direction. The captain's voice was quite near when it sounded:  
  
”Alert the eagle-riders; tell them we do not fly for the Moonwood tonight. With their help, we can wipe out the wayward Black Lion women and their cult leaders, and leave this area clean and free of humans as soon as tomorrow morning...!”  
  
Inside the tent, Hulda and the Untheri tensed, but the elf marched right past them, and out of earshot.  
  
”I was worried there for a moment that we had to sit on that one, too,” Zan said with a grin. “Has anyone seen my staff?”  
  
”My sword's missing as well,” Marek said.   
  
Hulda snapped her fingers:  
  
“Our weapons were confiscated first: likely, they've been stored separately.”  
  
”I bet that one-eyed wet blanket has them in his own tent, somewhere,” Zan said with a wry smile. “Unoccupied now, I reckon, while he's out looking for his shaman.”   
  
He looked at Marek, then Hulda. She caught on immediately:  
  
“If we go there now, we'll have plenty of time left to... borrow... some eagles, and get to the Ancestral Mound before anyone else does...!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	13. O Pinky Where Art Thou

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's word is S-U-B-T-L-E-T-Y. In this chapter, our fledgeling Motley Mayhem band will be demonstrating what it is and isn't.

Hulda and the two Untheri left the tent by its secret entrance again, and paused in the shadows for a bit until they were sure that no elf was near.  
  
”Let's go by the juniper bush again,” Zan suggested.  
  
”That's a detour,” Hulda objected, “and prickly."  
  
”Marek and I have been travelling for weeks in this country, and this one's the first juniper we've come across. I really need some of those berries in case I can catch ortolans. By the Planes I do love ortolans with juniper berries... A slow cook, careful seasoning, and a dry wine with -”  
  
”Then how come you didn't pick any of those berries a minute ago?” Hulda cut him short.  
  
”Well, I was _trying_ to let escaping and not being seen by any elves prioritise on what is merely the most succulent dish a wandering gourmet cook can fashion,” the Evoker said, “but I failed miserably and now I must stock up. I suppose I can deal with a couple of elves if need be; I'm not yet out of spells.”  
  
Hulda's hands went to her temples, as if to check if at least _she_ hadn't left her brains inside the tent.  
  
”You'd risk injuring or killing elves for juniper berries?”  
  
”I'm not married to any. Are you?”  
  
”You could get _us_ killed, too!”  
  
”Well I'm trying my best not to let that happen,” Marek said, looking at Zan and Hulda both. “But, my professional opinion on the matter would be that we should go for our weapons, first.”  
  
Next to him, his employer made the sort of face usually reserved for betrayal of the basest sort, but did not verbally object. The bodyguard masked looking away from him with a quick mustering of their surroundings.  
“Coast is clear. Stay low, everyone.”  
  
Hulda and Zan stole after Marek, who led the way. As they picked their way through the elf camp, Hulda evaluated Zan's apparent laid-back attitude when it came to casualties. It couldn't be that his wont for berries overruled the sanctity of Life, could it?  
The Evoker must have read Hulda's mind:  
  
”I'd totally kill for some juniper ortolans right now,” he whispered, and grinned.  
  
”...Not funny...!” Hulda jabbed at him, but thought in time to keep from lecturing the wizard – up ahead, two elven guards patrolled the open space that separated them from the tall tent they figured belonged to the Captain. Everybody immediately dropped down onto their stomachs.  
  
”We need a distraction,” Hulda sighed, peering through the grass.  
  
”No we don't,” Zan assured her.  
  
Hulda hissed at him:  
  
”Are you that hell-bent on taking some elves with you before we get overrun and put to the sword? For Selûne's light, let's do this nice and subtle!”  
  
”Subtlety is relative.”  
  
”What's that supposed to mean?” Hulda felt herself become exasperated with the man. She also wondered why he was in such a good mood, given their situation.  
  
”What I mean is,” Zan said, and rolled onto his side so he could point with both hands at the approximate direction of the tent they'd found their gear in. At that very same moment, a cacophonous bang tore the night open with a bright-red mushroom of fire and flaming bits of canvas. Over by the Captain's tent, the two guards left their post to assume mountain lion-form and sprint towards the site of the destruction with bristling manes and tails.  
“We don't _need_ a diversion,” the wizard continued, “because we already got one. Delayed fireball, always worth a laugh. Let's go.”  
  
Zan stood up before dusting himself off and marching towards the Captain's tent, his bodyguard and Hulda in tow.  
  
Caution wasn't completely wasted on the wizard, Hulda noticed when she saw him pause to check the tent for magical wards before waving his friends in. They made sure to close the tent door just like they'd found it, and after that, both Zan and Marek reunited with their staff and sword pretty fast. Hulda had to crawl around on all fours checking under the bedding and feeling the tent canvas for hidden compartments in search of her lost morningstar. Fundinn reassumed his position on her bum.  
  
”I can see the eagles,” Marek said, peering out the entrance. “Some elves running around over there, though: the explosion must have spooked the birds. I think I can spot some of the Captain's finest standing guard, as well.”  
  
”If there's less than five, we could pull an Ugly Annis on 'm,” Zan mused, following his bodyguard's glance and counting elves under his breath. Hulda wondered what an Ugly Annis was, and if there was such a thing as a pretty one.  
  
”There's five, maybe six,” Marek observed. “One on our side, see, then three more overthere, and those two talking – unless that's a gnarly tree. I do take it elves talk to trees?”  
  
Zan grunted.  
  
”So no Annis. How about...” he said, kicking the tent rug aside so he could get at the earth beneath it and draw their and the guards' positions in the sand. “...I'll drop a fireball in deep, then take out the front man while you come in low on shield-side and stay mellow on third count after signal. Then we clean up what's left.”  
  
”Fire will scare the animals even more,” Marek warned, and knelt beside his friend to erase some lines and make room for his own suggestions. “I'll go wide, yes, but then draw 'm close while you do a scorcher on the last elf to get around the corner – _then_ we do stay-mellow-on-third-count and clean up what's left.”  
  
Zan shook his head.  
  
”If I want to stay unseen that'll cost me one spell extra that I'm not getting back until tomorrow morning – they can see better than us in this poor light, remember? Wait, suppose we can drop the middle guy with a missile, then we could pull a left-side right-side on the others -”  
  
”...Followed by a Cold Patsy,” Marek completed for him.  
  
”Exactly! Unless we attract more. Then we need another melee,” Zan worried. Marek pointed:  
  
”Hulda's our second melee – she's got a really nasty swing with that morningstar of hers. But we'll need to get 'm close together so you can drop 'm all in one go.”  
  
Hulda, however, couldn't find Pinky for the life of her. It wasn't in the tent – but then where was it?  
  
”Hulda,” Zan called her. “We need you to go opposite shield-side, come in fast on four-count and get around for the inside-out Cold Patsy. With the morningstar.”  
  
”I can't find it!” Hulda said, finding herself teetering on the brink of panic. “We need to go back.”  
  
”Mammon's mother's mammaries – no. Just use that spear I gave you,” the wizard said.  
  
”But we're going to need Pinky,” Hulda insisted, “It's got enchantments that -”  
  
”One of the elves is leaving,” Marek reported, still on the lookout at the tent entrance.  
  
”Now's the time!” Zan briskly said, ignoring Hulda and getting ready to burst out of the tent door. Hulda pulled him right back by a handful of his tattered clothes.  
  
”No. It's a very important artifact of my goddess, and I need to go and find it, first!”  
  
”We can't afford to go without her,” Marek whispered to Zan, “She's an asset.”  
  
The Evoker huffed.  
  
”If she gets to go back for that morningstar, I get to go back for juniper,” he grumbled, and pulled himself free from Hulda's grasp.  
  
Marek, the poor man, was sweating from the effort it took him to keep the matter in hand.  
  
”We can't really risk the time...” he tried, but then Fundinn, standing right behind him with his little head poking out the tent door, interrupted him:  
  
”I see it!” he squawked. “Some elp in a cape was eapesdropping, and is now disappearing with my mistress' property behind those pir trees operthere!”  
  
Hulda mumbled something to the extent of 'be right back” before running out the door, deftly avoiding pegs and lines that she could trip over but ending up planting her face in the dirt after twelve-odd strides anyway. Zan and Marek scooped her right up in passing:  
  
”Alright, we'll chase after the damn morningstar. Try to be subtle about it though,” the wizard suggested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	14. Hunting Elves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here, we get to read how Hulda saves the life of one, only to end up endangering that of another, namely herself.

”Just how are you going to be subtle about it?” Hulda inquired.  
So far, the Evoker's methods had been rather bright and loud: the clearing they'd left behind to catch up with the morningstar-thief was still bustling with elves running around and trying to make sense of the explosion.  
  
”As soon as I get a clear line of sight, I'm going to give him the fat, juicy bird treatment”, Zan said.  
Hulda suspected he wasn't talking about eating the mysterious elf.  
  
They carefully approached the edge of the hillcrest – the trees here leaned precariously over the steep slope that led to a lower shoulder of the dominating mass of sand, rock and heather. It wasn't an easy descent, so the elf – encumbered with the hefty morningstar in one hand, likely, couldn't have gone far.  
  
Suddenly, Marek pulled his employer's sleeve and pointed. A sizzling bolt of energy from the Evoker lanced through the dark wood and made a cloaked figure flail and fall as the sapling he'd been holding onto exploded in a burst of lightning-cooked sapwood splinters.  
Marek, like a hound set loose, half-ran, half-slid towards the fallen prey. He charged right into the elf as he got back on his feet, and like a ball of legs and arms they tumbled down the hill.  
Next to Hulda, Zan was weaving gestures into another lightning bolt spell.  
  
”Don't do it! You might hit your bodyguard instead, from this distance!”  
  
”Little sister, you're about to witness what we chaps call the Thirsty Berserker: in three more counts, Marek will disengage and move left – providing a clear shot,” the Evoker explained, just as Hulda saw the runaway elf's hood fall away and reveal a stream of straight, moon-white hair. Marek jumped up and away.  
  
“No!” Hulda yelled, and threw herself on Zan's outstretched arm like a monkey at a bough.  
A white-hot bolt of energy speared the ground six feet away, vaporising twigs and causing rock fragments to hail down onto them both.  
  
”You porridge-for-brains madwoman!” Zan fulminated, gaze darting from Hulda to where Rhyl'lyn made a run for it – it had to be him – and back to her. “I can tell you've never shot yourself in the foot with a lightning spell! What did you have to do that for?!”  
  
”That was Rhyl'lyn!” Hulda pointed after the elf. Or at least, his approximate direction – the drow had virtually disappeared into the darkness.  
Marek stepped into view again, looking confused. He looked over at Zan and Hulda and raised his arms in defeat.  
  
”Not your fault, Marek. Get up here, we're heading back to those eagles,” Zan beckoned him.  
  
The warrior signaled that he'd understood, and started picking his way back up the slope.  
  
”There's a little trail on your right,” Hulda pointed. The dirt was flattened there from animal and pelt hunter traffic, and the soil between the tree roots had been shaped to resemble steps.  
When Marek had followed this winding track for half a dozen strides, something seemed to snap underfoot and the swordsman bit the dust.  
  
The lack of a fussing and groaning told Hulda it hadn't been just a misstep, and that the Untheri warrior was really hurting. She wanted to tell Zan but the wizard had already covered most of the distance, and skidded to a halt near his fallen comrade. Curses endured until Hulda was by their side, also. Fundinn descended from the treetops and alighted next to her.  
  
Hulda followed the look on Marek's ashen face towards a large wolf-trap that had snapped shut around and nearly ruined his lower leg; if not for the bronze greave, now punctured and buckled, he'd have most certainly lost his foot. Hulda felt a little light-headed, all of a sudden.  
  
Zan kept trying to comfort his friend and keep him from looking at the busted leg:  
  
”Shh – we're getting it fixed, we're going to fix it up. We're getting the shinguard off, right, and then you're getting potions. As long as it's hanging by a thread, you'll be healed – it'll be better than before! Shh, lie down -”  
  
”I have healing spells,” Hulda said, scooting over to Marek's other side. “Just let me put -”  
  
The tip of Zan's staff booping her nose took her by surprise.  
  
“What's this?” she said, eying the implement hovering in front of her face.  
  
”I'm done with your game,” Zan said, not a trace of humour or jest in his voice. “Take your hands off my associate or by Kossuth, I'll blast your little head right off your shoulders...!”  
  
”Game? What game?” Hulda stammered. Next to her, Fundinn squawked at the indignity towards his mistress.  
  
”Exhibit A,” Zan said, swinging the staff to the raven. “Approximately the same size and weight, yet never seen together. Don't imps commonly take the form of a raven? I take it the beak makes pronunciation a bit difficult, doesn't it, you fiendish wretch?”  
  
Fundinn's feathers stood out like an angry cat's tail, and he shivered with silent rage.  
  
”You hapn't the paintest idea,” the bird said, “how much this oppends me.”  
  
Zan ignored him and pointed the staff at Hulda again.  
  
”I've found it suspicious already that an amulet meant to locate a necromancer should lead us to a healer. Tell me – been dabbling in necromantic magics of late? Lead my bodyguard into a trap, would you? Poison him with wolfsbane, why not! Don't think I'll let you get away with finishing the job. I'll give you ten counts to step away and cast your worst – let's keep killing you sporty, shall we?”  
  
Hulda carefully lifted her hands from Marek's injured leg.  
  
”Look,” she said, slowly, trying not to agitate the Evoker further. She awkwardly pointed at the bleeding and trembling swordsman. “Marek here's in obvious pain...! If we could deal with that problem first...”  
  
The wizard said nothing, but with his free hand started rummaging in Marek's backpack. Hulda paled when she saw him uncork a little vial.  
  
”Bottoms up, friend,” she heard him say, but as was to be expected, Marek sputtered and coughed at the taste of wine instead of tekkil.  
  
Insults and slurs flew in Hulda's face as Zan pushed the head of the staff against her nose again with force. Hulda lost her balance and fell back on her bottom.  
  
”I can't burn you enough for what you just did there!” Zan raged above her, his staff prodding and pushing until she was clawing backwards through the dirt. The red stone in the item's golden top part was starting to waft heat, too, Hulda felt, and she tried not to think about what horrible spells the wizard had stored in there.  
  
”I tried to help! I'm not a saboteur, Selûne be my witness!” she said, but was running out of things that she could say to her defense. She'd closed her eyes and tried to shield her head with her arms, but when nothing was happening, she dared to steal a glance.  
  
Marek had reached out and grabbed a seam of Zan's mismatched robes. He looked at his employer, pained but resolute.  
  
”I don't trust her, Marek,” Zan said to him.  
  
The warrior did not let go.  
  
”But I do,” he rasped. Beads of sweat gleamed grey in the moonlight on his face. “It's fine. We can use the potions – it's fine.”  
  
In silence, Zan and Hulda – still shaking from being exposed to Zan's primal wrath like that – resumed their places next to the warrior, and the Evoker pushed two tiny flagons into Hulda's hands.  
  
”I count to three,” he said, his voice level, and then held the staff over the heavy iron wolf trap.  
  
On 'three', magic bloomed and the metal ran like water, spilling over the destroyed greave before the bronze, too, got melted away by heatless arcane energies. Hulda helped Marek down the contents of the two flagons, and witnessed the power of the healing potions expel what metal had found its way into the terrible wound, and then mend flesh and bone.  
A deep, slow sigh of relief told Hulda that the swordsman was without pain again.  
  
The joy was short-lived: a horn-blast ripped through the silence, its source way too close for comfort. Tree-tops swaying without a breeze spelled druidic magic.  
  
”It's the elves,” Hulda said. “They're hunting us”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	15. A Frolic In The Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you're in a scrap with positively livid elves in a forest, you better have some tricks up your sleeve. Now, what would be the literally last thing you'd use against an elf, I wonder...

There was hardly enough time to get some distance between them and the approaching elves; worse, they seemed unhindered by the terrain's undergrowth. Again, Hulda suspected magic was at play here: someone must have found and freed the Forest Master.  
  
She still had no weapon but the spear she'd been given, and she cursed its unwieldy length when it kept hitting tree trunks and soil as she ran after Zan and Marek in a neck-breaking dash down the slope.  
The butt-end of her spear struck a root, flicking the point upward just as a pursuing elf reached for her – the man got lifted from his feet and vaulted over Hulda's head to crash down much farther downhill.  
  
Up ahead, Zan and Marek were accosted by two elves lying in wait. They seemed eager to take out Zan's bodyguard with quick, downward scimitar-slashes, but the Untheri warrior blocked both weapons and initiated a toe-to-toe that would give his employer the time to use his magic.  
  
A sense of imminent danger coming in through Hulda's empathic link with Fundinn had her turn her head, but she hit the tree all the same. Lying spread-eagle, checking her head for injuries and feeling a nice imprint of pine bark underneath her hair, Hulda then noticed a leaf-cloaked figure striding out of that self-same tree one moment later: the Forest Master had taken a magical shortcut and was now raising his slender hands at an unwitting Zan's back.  
Hulda was on her feet within a breath - she used her spear to flick that pretty cloak over the elf's face and spoil his magic, after which a nudge of her pelvis saw him lose his balance and hit the pine cone-strewn forest floor. Zan whirled around and set the detritus aflame with a flick of his hand, causing the Forest Master to skitter around on all fours trying to keep from catching fire.  
  
Feeling inspired, Hulda moved to Marek's sparring partners and fouled the footing of one with the shaft of her spear – the Untheri saw the opening, and felled the stumbling elf. Before he could bring his sword up again, though, the remaining combatant kicked Marek's shield aside and slashed at the exposed arm, causing the warrior to shriek and cower – but the motion had been a feint to hide the crouch before a lunge, and Marek's black sword sunk deep into the elf's abdomen.  
  
With no Eldreth Veluuthra left standing on their side, Zan raised a barrier of flame to slow their pursuers and pushed Hulda and Marek onward, through a natural runnel and a knot of exceptionally prickly bushes.  
  
”Why did you – ouch! What -” Hulda commenced, but then she saw the wizard picking berries as he went, and didn't feel the need to ask anymore.  
She only hoped they wouldn't come across any ortolans that night. On a brighter note, she admitted, Zan did seem to have nudged them in the direction of the riding eagle's picket area.  
  
They were ascending a slope when the first arrow came flying, striking a rock not too far away from Hulda's head. The fletching was black instead of yellow – meaning the elves weren't trying to subdue their quary anymore. Hulda climbed faster... and then hit a wall.  
Figuratively, this time: the first roots and grasses of the rest of the forest grew fully twelve feet overhead, with nothing but hard-packed soil, eroded away to form a sheer and slightly concave wall that stretched on for quite the distance.  
Two more arrows clattered off Marek's shield and had the group huddle together.  
  
”I'm going to go and harass those pointy-eared petting farm monkeys,” Zan said. “You climb the wall – healers first.”  
  
”Do I _look_ like I'm carrying a ladder?”  
  
No sooner had she said it, or Hulda regretted it. Not only didn't she mean to be nasty, but she did have several ladders in her stockings by now, ironically.  
Zan merely flashed her his signature grin.  
  
”Sister, I'd be an uncivilised boor if I'd let you do the carrying. No, I brought the ladder for you,” he said, and dipped his hand in his sash to procure an acorn; one he'd taken from the Forest Master.  
  
He tossed it to his side, no more than several feet away. The explosive growth of the tree and its big roots underneath her feet made Hulda stumble and fall prone. More arrows sailed over her head.  
  
“Up you go!” Zan said. “Now if you'll excuse me, those elves have just gotten into throwing range..!”  
  
With Hulda working her way up the tree, and with Marek's shield providing cover for Zan from his shinbones up, the Evoker had enough room to start aiming acorns at the approaching Eldreth Veluuthra. Tall oak trees shooting from the ground like unfurling umbrellas buffeted the elves with their branches, made them trip and bump into one another and even, in the case of a particularly well-timed throw from Zan, catapulted them through and over the forest canopy.  
  
The wizard surrendered his advantageous position when Marek had to climb up their own tree, sword sheathed and shield slung behind him. Hulda pulled him up onto the shelf when he got within arm's reach.  
  
”You go ahead – secure an eagle for us, I'll help Zan,” the warrior said.  
  
Hulda nodded, and pushed through the thick undergrowth of the forest edge. The eagles were near.  
  
Or rather, they had been. The expanse where they'd previously spotted the animals was empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	16. Day Of The Pickle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The situation really has gone South now for our group of comrades. Maybe it's time for one last stab at diplomacy, or failing that, just one last stab at the enemy.

Hulda took a handful of paces onto the elevated flat, spying no movement in the elven camp, now on her left, or the surrounding lowlands under the light of the stars and the sickle moon.  
  
She was still aimlessly turning about when Zan and Marek entered the field, the wizard leaning heavily on his employee as he hopped over knots of grass on one leg – the other one had been run through with a black-feathered arrow. Hulda was with him in a breath, propping up her knee against the shaft so she could snap it without making the wound any worse. While she worked, she used Selûne's magic to check for poison, and fix the leg.  
Fundinn, having sensed her distress, landed beside her.  
  
”Where are our rides?” the wizard demanded.  
Hulda feared the man's mistrust was flaring up again.  
  
”I -”  
  
”Great,” Zan said.  
  
”Well it _is_ pickle day,” Fundinn muttered.  
  
”Our avian friends have left, on my bidding,” came the sullen explanation.  
The Forest Master strode onto the green, singed cloak and all. “You will not escape, not from us and not from due Justice.”  
The elf drew a short stick from a holster on his belt, and held it out before him, where it turned into a slender longspear. Behind him, close to a score of elves emerged from the forest one after another, readying their weapons as well.  
  
Hulda swallowed to try and get rid of the sudden dryness in her throat, and made to stand next to Zan.  
  
”Look, I'm fairly certain we can come to a mutual -” she started, but shrieked and jumped when the Forest Master suddenly cast a wild spell.  
Beside her, Fundinn squawked and thumped to the ground. Hulda saw his small form shift and shrink into something featherless and grey. She felt his confusion and distress through her bond with him, and for good reason – the poor bird had just been turned into a tiny mole.  
  
Visibly jostled at the affront of someone messing with a spellcaster's familiar, Zan bristled and pushed his way to the front.  
The Forest Master would have none of it, however, and fell into a thrusting stance that speared a fold of Zan's tunic as the latter jerked his body out of harm's way just in time. A trickle of juniper berries rolled out of the gash and into the grass.  
  
Hulda heard the Evoker draw a deep, hackle-raising breath as he fixed his eyes on his attacker, who now circled him like a winter wolf around a moose. Likewise, the other elves started forming a perimeter around them, tightening their formation with each step taken. Marek moved to stand back-to-back with Zan and Hulda, his sword locked in the outlandish high guard she'd seen him use before, ready to swing either which way. Fundinn clawed his way into the earth, scared and disoriented.  
  
”Mind your lips, he sees them as a cue to foul your casting,” Marek told Zan.  
  
Hulda looked at the wizard next to her, but could only spot his stupid grin.  
  
The Evoker's staff flying up in a spray of grass and wildflower petals came unannounced and fast as lightning; it knocked the Forest Master's longspear nearly out of his hands, and came back round to connect with the elf's head. Zan's roar of defiance as the man went down merged with the ululating war-cries of the elf force, and before she knew, Hulda was tangled up in a terrible mass of flying blades and blood, thrusting spears and seething bolts of energy. She saw a pointy ear fly past and bounce off of her, and by chance stabbed the elf behind her in the face with her spear when she wanted to jab at another in front of her with the bottom end.  
  
She lost her footing when Marek came crashing between her and Zan, a pair of lycans on his chest. No sooner had she hit the grass, or she was upended and dragged towards the highest portion of the eagle field, her spear wrested from her and thrown to the side.  
Marek was the next to arrive there, carried forcefully by a handful of the Eldreth Veluuthra. Hulda could only hope all that blood on him wasn't his own.  
  
From where she was being made to kneel in the grass, she had a good view on Zan gradually disappearing under a growing number of elves, some yelping or grunting as they underwent intimate acquainting with the wizard's knuckles and elbows.  
The stoic captain - the one-eyed elf they'd heard called Esfandiar- approached the heap to regard it for a moment, and then sunk his scimitar in, up to its hilt.  
  
A pained cry sounded from deep within the pile, and the elves peeled away one by one to reveal Zan crumpled into a ball, frantically trying to apply pressure to a wound at belly-button height. Grim-faced elves carried him over to where Hulda, Marek and the elves that held them at sword-point waited.  
  
”I see now my decision to keep you alive was a mistake. Your punishment shouldn't be kept from you any longer,” Captain Esfandiar addressed them.  
  
”Was it something I said?” Zan asked, his grin indestructible even as he sat bleeding out.  
  
This, if such a thing was possible, soured the elf's expression even more. He lifted his scimitar to touch Zan's chin with the edge, a wordless reminder of who'd have the last laugh, Hulda figured.  
  
Zan's smile didn't falter.  
  
“Alright, I'll be quiet; I can do that. I'll let you go about your thing, then.”  
  
The captain's gaze shifted.  
  
”Forest Master, if you'd join us.”  
  
The scorched and battered person of the Forest Master stepped up to his colleague. He had a lump the size of a hen's egg on the side of his head, and Hulda cringed at the idea of combing one's hair in the morning with one of those.  
  
”My thanks, Captain Esfandiar. These are fond memories in the making, I can tell.” He eyed Hulda, Marek, and the Evoker last. “Do continue.”  
  
The Captain stepped up to Marek, on Hulda's left hand side, who had his head lowered and his eyes closed in apparent exhaustion.  
  
“See now the Victorious Blade of -” the elf said, but then a concussive bloom of heat slammed into everyone present.  
The Forest Master lay on his back, wafting smoke.  
  
”Goodness!” Zan exclaimed, “Someone fireballed that poor man! Without speaking! Or using their hands for that matter. I say, whoever did this is a veritable force of nature!”  
  
On Hulda's other side, Marek sniggered.  
  
”You cannot hope to win this, _savalir-biir_!” the captain spewed.  
  
”Protection from fire! You lot just ran out, didn't you?” Zan yelled right back, even as elves jumped to pull his arms behind his back and push his head into the dirt. “Your pal there went up like a tindertwig! I'll light up this party yet, just try and stop me!”  
  
He hadn't finished that last sentence, or another burst of flame erupted right next to him, blasting yet another elf.  
  
The Evoker was displaying a fierceness and resolve Hulda found so scary she wished herself a mile away from there. At the same time, she felt the situation slipping from her grasp. People were getting killed here, while only scant leagues away, young women sacrificed by the score were going to unleash something terrible.  
  
A fireball that missed the Eldreth Veluuthra Captain by a hair exploded close-by, throwing Hulda onto her side. Elves rushed past her to start and pummel Zan senseless. The one standing behind Hulda got shouldered out of the way as Marek threw himself into the scrap with a cry, digging for his friend as one would for someone caught in an avalanche.  
  
”Please,” Hulda said to the Captain, who had retained his composure throughout. “Terrible things are going to happen...”  
  
He gave her a cold look. Took two more steps towards her.  
  
”I'm working on that.”  
  
She watched him lift his scimitar.  
  
“See now the Victorious Blade of the People -”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	17. Wild, Wild Horses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: do not read if you're Smokey the Bear.

Because of all the fire-starting by Zan, the glow didn't immediately get through to anyone, including Hulda. Heads turned as soon as a chortling screech rode the chill air up to the grassy elevation they were on, however, and the alarm was sounded.  
  
To the North-East, a fire raged across more than an arm-length's worth of horizon. A cold draft picked up, blowing in everyone's backs and neck – the wildfire was breathing in fresh air like a voracious behemoth.  
  
Hulda, getting back on her feet now that the executioner's sword wasn't aimed at her anymore, knew a thing or two about heather easily catching fire in the dry season, but this looked to be something different altogether. The stretch of flames seemed to wheel and turn, now making for their hilltop in a wide arc. Another screech pierced the air, and the sound of drumming hooves shook the ground.  
  
The Captain started shouting orders, urging those with spears to the front, but there was precious little time to get in formation, and Hulda and her friends weren't the only ones disarmed during the previous fighting.  
  
A midnight creature, quadruped and trailing flame from its muscled neck and hindquarters had reached their position, the sloped terrain giving the powerful legs little in the way of trouble and doing nothing to reduce the speed at which the monstrous thing approached. It reared in response to the raised spears set in the path of its charge, uttering such a deafening cry Hulda had a finger in each ear before she could help herself.  
  
She'd heard of this kind of creature – it was a Nightmare, an equine demon only rarely called to the Prime Material Plane by evil spellcasters. The fact that there were more than one, with four of these currently making their way up the hill as well, indicated the use of very powerful magic. This gave Hulda goosebumps regardless of the palpable heat the Nightmare was exuding. There were still some hours left before midnight – had Mortimere started his ritual early?  
  
The first Nightmare had batted some weapons aimed at it away with its iron-like, cloven hooves, and now grappled one unfortunate elf's own spear with its toothy muzzle to drag that one close enough to trample her.  
While Captain Esfandiar and several of his lieutenants shifted shape and tried to keep the other demon horses from completing their approach, Hulda ran the other way, to find her spear and to check on Marek and Zan. She could see the swordsman throw himself on his unconscious wizard to protect him from the sharp hooves and fiery tail of a Nightmare that had managed to get past the elves. The blue and orange flames of the creature's passing stuck to the hapless bodyguard's clothing, and Hulda hurried to come and slap them out with her own cloak.  
  
Demon fire was malicious and fickle, and resisted her administrations by bending this way and that, and jumping to her own garments. It took a precious long while before the last spark had been smothered, and attention could be turned to poor Zan. He was out cold but fortunately, neither dying nor on fire. Hulda revived him with a healing spell, and started treating Marek's wounds while she let the wizard take stock of the sudden turn of events.  
  
”We're winning!” he said.  
  
”Actually, you didn't cause all that fire,” Marek corrected him. “Fiendish chargers are running about, coming from the direction of the Ancestral Mound. We have to leave, now.”  
  
”Aye. I'll clear us a corridor for a sortie,” Zan said, hitching up his breeches.  
  
”Wait! Fundinn is still here, somewhere...!”  
  
Hulda started clawing at the soil.  
  
”He's a mole now, right? Tell him to stay underground – he's as safe as can be. Unlike some,” Zan muttered.  
  
Hulda followed his gaze, and saw that the ring of fire had nearly closed around the hill they were on – the stampede of Nightmares was flowing through the forest with the freshly planted oak trees like a fiery procession, neighs and snorts abundant as the creatures picked their way across the steeper parts of the decline. The fire fed eagerly on the dead wood on the ground and the pine boughs above. Temperatures rose to uncomfortable heights, and stinging smoke was forming.  
  
”Grab a weapon; we're leaving _now_ ,” Zan announced, and started casting _more_ fire-spells, of all things.  
  
Hulda was happy to leave fire to the expert, however, and hurried to pick up a spear. Then, a stray Nightmare must have noticed her separating herself from the group, because it ran over to come stand exactly between her and her comrades. Blue smoke flew from its nostrils as it snorted, tossing its head before stomping towards her.  
Hulda yelped, raising the spear between herself and the charging menace, getting thrown on her rump as the point sank into the thick muscles of the Nightmare's neck. Rolling through the dirt and the sparks, Hulda cleared the deadly zone of hooves and trailing fire, while the demon horse bucked and reeled off into the inferno beyond the hill-crest, the spear sticking out of its body at an awkward angle. Hulda hastened to rejoin her allies.  
  
”A weapon!” Zan pressed. His spells had scorched a narrow but functional escape route of charcoal and ash running through the towering flames left and right.  
  
”Seems it is not to be,” Hulda said, and started pushing the men onward. “I don't like spears anyway – I keep stabbing everyone with them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	18. What To Fight Fire With

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demon horses have set the area alight! The situation requires our heroes burn through quite a lot of their spells, but will it be enough? Which bright spark can possibly save the heroes now?

Their flight through the hill-lands which were, presently, in mid-conflagration was no stroll in the park. Zan was having his whirling orbs of automotive flame clear a path for them, with some success. While the demonic flames left and right could get no foothold on that scorched earth, they seemed to reach for and tower over the band of fugitives, sometimes as much as forming a hellish tunnel of roaring fire.   
Hulda's cloak was magical, and resisted the eager tendrils of flame that reached for her some, but the clothes on everyone's backs were, apparently, considered easy prey and much time was lost smothering little fires and healing burns.  
  
Hulda sacrificed most of her spells in that hour, blinking sweat from her eyes and trying to breathe the torturous air around them. One glance at her grim-faced comrades told her they knew as much as she did: that sooner or later, they would run out of fiery spells to cast, healing magic, or breathable air.  
  
When the three orbs ahead had burnt their last, Zan replaced them with only two new ones. He shooed Hulda away when she used her hands to pat out what appeared to be the beginning of his coal-black curls catching fire.  
  
”How much healing do you still have in you?” he asked.   
  
Hulda stared at the two flaming orbs starting to mill away at the burning heath, disappearing over the crest of a low hill.  
  
”It's almost depleted,” Hulda admitted.   
  
She held on to her most powerful spells, in case they met more of the dreadful Nightmares.  
  
”Best to up the tempo, then,” Marek grunted, and began jogging, taking the lead.  
  


* * *

  
Ascending the low hill was excruciating; the heat nearly boiled Hulda's lungs and twice she was forced to stagger out of the way of a particularly undertaking tongue of flame, lashing out at everyone in turn now that the path had narrowed considerably. She tumbled more than she ran down the other side of the rise, and suddenly found herself submerged in lukewarm, fetid water.   
Coughing and retching, she blinked the sludge from her eyes and noticed Zan and Marek sitting, much like her, in a knee-deep natural pool. A frog floated belly-up in front of her.  
  
”Yay, water!” Hulda tried, but had to cough again.   
  
On top of being hot, the air now was incredibly damp as well, and neither the wizard nor his bodyguard looked happier than before. In unison, all three sighed.  
  
”What are our options?” Marek asked his employer.   
  
The wizard flung mud at the wall of fire.  
  
”Praying to Kossuth for rain,” he said. Then he turned to Hulda.  
“Wasn't that cloak invested with the power of flight?”  
  
Hulda wrung the water from her Moon Cloak.  
  
”Why yes – and I can walk on water with it, also.”  
  
”That's nice.”  
  
A silence settled over the pool. The Untheri were looking at Hulda expectantly, she noticed.  
  
”What?”  
  
”How come you haven't flown off yet?” Zan asked. “I'd give my right arm for a set of wings right now!”  
  
”Well, technically,” Hulda said, “Wings are arms, so you would have to offer up a leg, instead, and maybe consider asking for a tail as well, since you'll need something to use as a rudder if you -”  
  
”Feel free to answer the question at a time of your convenience,” Zan muttered, looking about and scratching his beard.   
  
Marek coughed.  
  
”Well it won't do to leave you guys down here, right?” Hulda said. “And Fundinn is close-by, I can tell! I need to find someone who can dispel his... well his mole-ness before he forgets he used to be a bird...”  
  
At that exact moment, a huge bubble started to form on the surface of the pool, directly in front of her. Everyone watched as it grew to the size of a decent-sized watermelon before bursting into a shower of rank, brown droplets.  
Two more bubbles followed in quick succession, and then the water level of the pool quickly dropped, as if someone had pulled the stopper. Hulda, Zan and Marek rose and gaped at the sudden vortex appearing between them.  
  
”Ashes and cinders!” the wizard suddenly said, and plunged an arm into the whirl, reaching down.  
  
Squeaking and sputtering, his prize got pulled from the sludge.  
  
”Fundinn!” Hulda cried, accepting the dripping familiar in her arms.   
  
He looked nothing like the raven he was before, but she could still read his indignation at having to tunnel up into a body of water to reach her.  
  
  


* * *

  
That pool was now quickly running dry, and everybody was forced to huddle close in the mud, while eager flames started leaning in more and more.  
  
”We can't stay here,” Marek said, pretty much voicing Hulda's thoughts.  
  
”Sssh - my boots are almost dry,” Zan said.  
  
”What good will dry boots do us?” Hulda asked him.   
  
Once again without fail, the wizard had his reasons:  
  
”Why sister! We're going for a jog!” he said merrily.   
  
A quick reading of his bodyguard's expression told Hulda the merriment was likely a play to hide something far less fun. His employer rose and conjured, once more, a whirling orb of fire.  
A single, medium-sized orb.  
  
“Single file, everyone. Hold hands – we're not coming back for stragglers,” Zan announced. He eyed his friend. “Marek, we've done this before.”  
  
”It did nothing to help me like it,” the swordsman said.  
  
”But we've got a healer now, don't we? Hulda, middle position, if you please,” he beckoned.   
  
Hulda stuffed Fundinn in her dress and assumed her place between the Evoker and his bodyguard, holding hands, and took a quick peep over the wizard's shoulder towards the flaming ball, which started moving towards the edge of the drained pool.   
Zan said:  
  
“Stay close, Sister.”  
  
”Selûne bless this desperate idea of yours,” Hulda managed before the flaming orb jerked into motion, their little group following suit.  
  
  


* * *

  
Their run was nothing short of nightmarish: staying just outside the wake of Zan's conjured fire-orb, its flames sometimes playing over their heads a testimony to its dreadful proximity – this was the same spell that decimated the ranks of the Eldreth Veluuthra in Beorunna's well, after all – they were still hard-pressed to stay ahead of the demonic conflagration. The towering masses of flame aimed to close the breach the ball had made like rushing waters would move to fill the trough made by a diving bird on a lake. The face of Marek, right behind Hulda, was a grimace of pain, and she channelled Selûnes healing without thinking twice.  
Zan tried to say something over the roar of the fire.  
  
”What?” Hulda yelled back.  
  
”We have to move faster!” he shouted over his shoulder, before squinting anew through blistered eyelids at the rolling orb before him.   
  
Hulda healed him, as well.  
A second ball of fire manifested in front of the first, which had started to grow insubstantial. The wizard's timing was excellent, but maintaining the neck-breaking speed with air hardly colder than the flames themselves became impossible; Hulda felt a lump of something charred resist her plowing feet, and she was falling -  
  
Searing hot pain came next, when the bronze of Marek's armour burnt her naked arms and cheek, him having caught her, and throwing her back on her feet before him. Hulda was able to grasp Zan's hand again, and maintain the line.  
  
Next, the whirling fire-ball up front must have hit something semi-solid, as well, because large flaming chunks of something came shooting past; Hulda saw Zan take one straight on the left temple – he reeled, but regained his footing, good man. Even so, Hulda could send no healing through their linked hands; she was fresh out, and the wizard seemed aware of that fact, too.  
  
”This is the moment of truth, my hearties: one final push!” he shouted, an effort followed by a wracking cough.   
Hulda gritted her teeth – none of them had been able to see the extent of the area on fire. Hoping to clear it before the spell ran out made her feel more left to the mercy of the gods than any time before in her life.  
Oh Selûne...  
  
In a moment of divine clarity, shorter than the span of a thought, Hulda was reminded of her gifts bestowed on her, to protect her.  
  
 _“No!”_ she thought in reply, _“I won't use the flying mantle! It is unfair!”_  
  
The response that reached through to her, was not a word or thought, but a simple emotion – that of making a goof in front of a beloved teacher.  
  
 _Oh, silly girl..._  
  
Hulda gathered all her breath and yelled:  
  
”Hold on tight, you two! I will activate -”  
  
”Ravine!” Zan shouted, first in line to witness the rolling ball drop down, out of sight.   
  
He tried to slow down but his sandals skidded on the fine ash covering solid rock, and he was carried over the edge, too. Hulda had the trouble of her life maintaining a grip, forcing Marek over the side with her as she willed her bracers to activate.  
  
Bouncing off a soft object that made an _oomph_ -ing sound, Hulda landed onto something cool and damp. The air was chill and dark – a forest – and the roar of the flames was distant. Wet leaves stuck to her hot skin everywhere, and she thought it was the best feeling ever. Rolling over, she spotted Marek looking around, rather flummoxed and not a little bit singed. Zan was rocking himself to and fro on his back, arms over his stomach.  
  
”We made it!” Hulda said, and strew leaves all about. “Three cheers for Moon Bracers! I'd go again if I could.”  
  
”Pass,” Marek said, and Zan too seemed to shoot Hulda a glare from where he lay.  
  
”My, my, my,” a voice belonging to neither trickled into Hulda's ear.   
  
It was lilting and smooth, like a minstrel's. Hulda spun around.  
A youth walked there on the moss, porcelain skin and hair as light as the moon, with pearls and silver adorning every bit of him that wasn't covered by the silk robes he wore.  
  
“My dear enemies!” he said, with arms wide open. “I was wondering if you would show up.”  
  
Hulda tore her eyes from the youth, to the darker figure that walked four paces behind him. This one was tall and gaunt and clothed in a Necromancer's regalia.  
  
”Oh, right,” Zan said behind her, “these guys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	19. My Dear Enemies, Indeed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY Mortimere and his pawn show up, and now it is up to our slightly broiled adventurers to get through with plan A, namely taking that Necromancer out. They're already warmed up; what could possibly go wrong?

”That was quite the show you put up,” Mortimere told Hulda, Zan and Marek. The gravel-like quality of his voice had worsened since Hulda last saw him, she thought. She couldn't quite see because of the cowl, but he sounded like he was talking through a sack of rocks.   
The Necromancer drew a rattling breath before continuing: “I have been keeping a close eye on your little band this night, you see.”   
  
Hulda startled at something small closing in on her – it was a life-like but sickly yellow, floating eye, now dipping slightly to stare at her.   
Zan's hand shot out and snatched the thing out of the air.  
  
“I don't mind spectators,” he said, and squeezed until Hulda heard a wet pop, accompanied by a squirt of fast unraveling arcane residue. “If they are man enough to stand a bit closer, at least.”  
  
”I am almost tempted to punish your for your tone, or do something else that will prove but idle distraction. No, my quarrel is with your blonde companion,” Mortimere pointed. “Hand her over, and you -” he waved his hand in an annoyed manner - “ _secret agents_ or whatever can go back to doing what it is your kind does; waylaying elven supremacists... picking berries for all I care. Go, go – give an old Necromancer and his acquaintance some space.”  
  
Marek and Hulda looked at Zan, whose blood had drawn from his face in either mortal dismay or acute befuddlement for being dismissed in such manner.  
Marek spoke up:  
  
”We will not just walk away from this, and neither will we give up on Hulda. She has helped us a lot today. Moreover, you have made my wizard very angry.”  
  
”You have no idea,” Zan growled.  
  
Hulda spoke up:  
”If this is still about me getting your daughter Gertrud away from your influence, you're one sore loser and you can count on it that I won't rat her out!” she said.  
  
Mortimere raised a hand.  
  
”Listen.”  
  
Hulda could hear nothing out of the ordinary.  
  
“That,” Mortimere said, “was the sound of my young companion activating his _Invisibility_ spell.”  
  
  


* * *

  
It was true – no matter where Hulda looked, Starbuster wasn't to be found. Zan and Marek tensed as well, and assumed back-to-back positions, sword and staff poised.   
Mortimere jeered:  
  
”It's no use! The lad is quite the er, quiet one. Genuine Waterdhavian street urchin, more light-footed than a praying mantis. I suppose he'll pop up again right about -”  
  
From behind the cowled Necromancer, a blue-clad figure darted forward; even if she saw him only from the corner of her eyes, Hulda saw her chance to throw herself backwards, hoping to foil the sweep of the dagger coming unmistakably for their Evoker. An unexpected object in her path; a deep grunt, and Hulda suddenly found herself sprawled backwards over a floored Zan with his magic staff awkardly caught between them.   
Starbuster, in a flurry of ribbons and silk, came to an early full stop, thwarted by the relocation of his mark and the sudden opening for Marek, who now came at the half-elf with two big strides and his sword in its ready-to-make-a-mess high guard. The Waterdhavian youth snarled and brandished his blade in frustration, eyes glued to the Untheri swordsman's own.  
  
Suddenly, the boy laughed a sweet, trickling laugh.  
  
”Nervous, soldier?” he asked.  
  
”It would appear your martial friend has a fit of the shakes,” Mortimere observed, his own delight clear and present in his voice.  
  
Hulda could see it was no new ploy: Marek's trembling had begun anew, and even stronger than before. This wasn't just the wolfsbane poisoning anymore – these were withdrawal symptoms.   
She regretted pouring the man's tekkil away now more than ever.  
  
It also meant she'd have to try and set things right.  
  
”You're going down,” Starbuster said, but then he got a boot flush on his nose.  
  
Hulda was impressed by the result – it seemed really painful for the half-elf, but then again, her boots were magical to begin with.  
Marek, before Mortimere could shout and flail, had followed up with a wild swing at the staggering Starbuster. A glancing blow, but still hard enough to make the steel of the black sword ring audibly even over the rustling and bustling of all five people suddenly being up and about and in each other's hair.  
Hulda, one foot getting cold and wet fast, saw Zan jump out of the way of a necrotic spell of some description, while she herself drew upon the powers of her flying cloak, her last ace up her sleeve.  
She arrived safely and, she hoped, quietly onto a branch situated directly above the hub-hub. She guessed she had to do something about the Necromancer, first. As soon as that one got taken out, Zan would just noogie Starbuster into unconsciousness or something, and save the day. If the Evoker's knuckles worked half as well on half-elves as they did on full-blooded ones, victory was certain.  
She jumped.  
  
A fiery bolt from Mortimere spiraled upwards, out of control and into the foliage when Hulda landed hard onto the Necromancer's neck. The thing she felt being busted under her weight wasn't the man's spine, however, but without a doubt her own tailbone. A sudden shower of sparks had Mortimere and her, lancing pain in her lower rump or no, duck for cover – a large burning branch landed right next to them with a crash and more fireworks.   
  
The smoke from the wet leaves made it hard to see clearly, but at least everyone was colour-coded: scarlet-and-burgundy Zan was currently chasing sky-blue Starbuster, shouting “If I fold you double, I can fit you in my sandwich!” and more food-related insults. Clearly the man was hungry. Mortimere, black cloak billowing in the hot draft, dusted off his robes without taking his eyes off Hulda. Marek's bronze armour was no-where to be seen, this side of the burning branch.  
  
Hulda, still on all fours with a bottom that felt like an elephant was standing on it and knowing she only had a spell for detecting magic left in her, contemplated taking off her other boot. Inside her tunic, Fundinn had slid deeper after the jump and was blindly describing circles around her waistline, with his scratchy little mole-claws. All in all she felt a little taken off balance in this fight.   
Moreover, there was something offish about Mortimere... Wizards didn't normally get that more powerful in the time between their first meeting and this weird re-crossing of paths. Not without help.  
  
”Master,” a gentle voice sounded from beside the Necromancer. Somehow, the half-elf had managed to ditch his pursuer – where, and how, Hulda could only fear.  
  
”Not now,” Mortimere waved, but a sword previously hidden behind a fold of blue silk and belonging to none other than Marek, flew up and rang against the cowled skull like a bell. Mortimere, admirably and uncannily, reeled but stayed on his feet.  
  
”Go Hulda, go!” Zan, from somewhere to Hulda's left, shouted at her, right before he tackled a second Starbuster to the ground.  
  
Hulda clawed her way towards Mortimere, who was trying to get a safe spellcasting-distance between himself and his foe, but felt a spell wash over her that caused her eyes to roll around in their sockets and her ears whistle for a brief moment. An enormous rustling and fidgeting in her tunic had her discover Fundinn was a bird again even before her dear familiar started shouting muffled profanities, and the mysterious sword-wielding Starbuster had turned into Marek again, as well.   
Mortimere huffed, and droned a guttural incantation that stopped the charging swordsman right in his tracks.  
  
The black sword, held mid-swing by the motionless Marek, quivered like a reed in a gale. Hulda could see Marek sweat from the exertion, fighting the magic that held him fast.  
  
”Come on Marek, you can do it,” Hulda whispered.  
  
Mortimere strode closer to the poised blade, eyeing it like one would a work of art.  
  
”Mmm, yes, tekkil, without a doubt. Small wonder you're so vulnerable to enchantments. Your wizard should have taken better care of you,” he mumbled.  
  
Hulda felt around the forest detritus in search for a rock or something else that would pack a punch, when her hand closed around a piece of wood of familiar dimensions and smoothness. A spark of hope leapt up in her heart, and she made to sneak towards the Necromancer unseen.  
  
”And you,” Mortimere said, but Hulda had already leapt forward.  
  
”Say hello to my little friend, Pinky!” she shouted, but what she brought down onto the Necromancer's head wasn't of Selûnite make, or even a morningstar. The dry stick broke in three pieces, leaving Hulda with an embarrassingly small chunk of forest junk clasped in both hands.  
  
Mortimere shot her a withering look, but then addressed the Evoker a ways behind her:  
  
”Relinquish the staff and leave my servant alone, or I'll rid you of yours,” he said, and pointed a knobby finger.  
  
Zan cursed, but let go of his opponent and rolled onto his back. Starbuster scuttled away, nursing an arm.  
  
”He bit me,” he said, handing Zan's staff over to his master.  
  
”I wanted to know if you tasted like you smell, you blueberry,” Zan quipped.  
  
“You disgrace me, all of you – I deserve better enemies than this,” Mortimere said, tossing the staff at Marek, who mechanically caught it and laid it over his shoulder. His stare was blank. Mind-magic, Hulda guessed.   
  
”Get that boot back on that foot, girl. The lot of us have some walking to do,” Mortimere told her, which completely took Hulda by surprise.  
  
”You're... you're taking us with you? Why?”  
  
”Why not? Your wizard is clean out of spells, as are you, from the looks of it, and your swordsman is in a sorry state even without my magic controlling him. I might as well let you tag along. By no means let this get to your head, but I think I'd like it if you were there, when things get interesting.” The Necromancer turned, and led the way. “It's a terrible and tired old cliché, but I find I am somewhat prone to gloating.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	20. A Most Abysmal Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At long last, the party has arrived at the Ancestral Mound of the Black Lions. What is it exactly that Mortimere has planned, and is there any hope of stopping it?

The peculiar congregation arrived to an even more curious scene: the Ancestral Mound of the Uthgardt, at last, came into view. It was barely visible behind the curtain of fire which embraced it like a shell, showing only the tops of the granite monoliths that crested the hill above the lapping flames. At Mortimere's gesture, part of the fiery wall drew up to form a spanning arch raining sparks and flakes of ash, and through which Hulda and her companions suddenly found themselves in the company of the virgins from Beorunna's Well.   
The girls, between twelve years and Hulda's own age all, were huddling close together beside a freshly unearthed pile of human bones – their own ancestors, without a doubt. Hulda estimated that a skilled Necromancer could turn most of that into a dozen animated skeletons or more, and hoped a Black Lion's skill in battle wouldn't linger somewhere in those old bones. To her surprise, Mortimere ordered his pawn Starbuster to start feeding the human remains into a smallish fire burning close to the cromlech's centre, while the Necromancer, himself, started humming and pacing. His bony fingers fluttered at his sides in chaotic patterns.  
At the same time, Marek grunted and sagged to a knee – the Necromancer had let him go... likely, to better concentrate on another bit of magic. Hulda wanted to apologise to the abused bodyguard, but he waved her away, panting and still shaking quite a bit.  
  
”Don't; I have only myself to blame for this,” he said.  
  
”Are we going to let him do that unopposed?” Zan asked, on Hulda's right-hand side. He was eyeing the Necromancer. “Because I know a ritual when I see one, and this doesn't look like bringing your average corpse back to life.”  
  
”You're completely drained and so am I,” Hulda whispered back, “and to be frank, I don't know _what_ it is that he's doing.”  
  
”Oh, alright. Let us just sit tight then, and see what it is he's been wanting to do all evening, in front of those poor girls over there.” He waved at one of the wide-eyed virgins. Hulda shot the Evoker a look. He grinned. “My thoughts exactly. Let's push his buttons, shall we?”  
  
As one, mage and bodyguard stepped up to Mortimere and his servant, Hulda trailing after in hopes of figuring out the men's tactics before they got in trouble too deeply to help.   
  
”Sandwich,” Zan said all of a sudden, and Marek's head snapped around to face Starbuster, who'd apparently skulked off at the first sign of the three of them attempting something, and was coming in hot with his dagger poised low and ready to open someone up.   
Marek parried the blow aimed for his gut with a forearm to Starbuster's own, and got in a tight tangle with the cutthroat infiltrator by the time Zan could lay a hand on Mortimere's shoulder.  
  
”What,” the Necromancer barked, but saw Zan's fist in time to move his face out of harm's way. “Unparalleled stupidity,” Mortimere said, pulling a wand from his sleeve.   
  
Zan groped for it, but Hulda saw him slip his own, _other_ hand right into Mortimere's opposite sleeve.  
  
A mis-fired bolt of grey energy flew right over Hulda's head, just as she crouched to shoulder the Necromancer in the ribs. Lean and frail though the man might have looked, Hulda could just as well have rammed a post. A jolt of pain stole her breath away, and she staggered.  
Mortimere's cold, clammy hand got a hold of her tunic's neckline.  
  
”You meddling, mewling, misguided -” he started, but then a magic wand was shoved up his nose.  
  
”Dodge this,” Zan said, and fired.  
  
Hulda instinctively closed her eyes at the violent discharge of magic.   
A low chuckle took her by surprise.  
  
”Ha ha – wrong wand, friend Evoker. It only works on the living...!”  
  
With inhuman force, Hulda was lifted from her feet by her tunic, and tossed aside. A desperate wail rose from the Uthgardt virgins, and on the ground, Hulda gasped a silent prayer to Selûne.  
  
”You're a lich,” she heard Zan say. “... A well-preserved one.”  
  
”Compliments won't save your hide now, Evoker. The ritual is almost done. Servant! The blood, now.”  
  
”As my master commands,” Starbuster said, still circling Marek. The lithe half-elf made to dash past the swordsman's left, but his movement proved a feint when he slid under the flashing blade with perfect timing, and ran his own steel across the Untheri's unguarded leg as he went around right. “The blood of the living, coming right up, master...!”  
  
”Are you alright?” Hulda asked Marek, cringing at the wound on his thigh. It was quite the bleeder, but not yet a gusher.  
  
”Fleshwound; I'll live. Get Zan away from there,” Marek said.   
  
Hulda followed his gaze, and saw Starbuster holding the bloody dagger in the bone-fire, watching the Untheri wizard with a naughty little grin. A whisp of smoke rose from the blade.  
  
”This is for threatening to eat me,” the youngster said, and at that self-same moment, Hulda felt a strange pressure in the air, rattling her nerves and doing weird things with her divine connection not unlike what it felt like to meet Orgolorth, the Pit Fiend, for the first time.  
  
Before she had good and well recognised the feeling for what it was, boundaries between this world and others ruptured, and a geyser of multi-coloured flame shot upward into the midnight sky. The roar of the supernatural fire was drowned out by the cry of something even more sinister, a hulking and hairy beast of a thing, summoned to the scene.  
  
”Demon ally of the Infinite Abyss! Welcome at last!” Mortimere yelled over the racket, and in response, the flame rained down again, revealing the monster in full.   
Hulda forgot to breathe.  
  
Small in comparison, Zan's frame was outlined by the flickering fire, shaken but holding his ground. With a cry of defiance, the Evoker raised his wand.  
  
”No!” Marek yelled, but it was already too late – the shaft of magic grazed the cheek of the towering demon, causing him to frown down onto his pesky assailant.  
  
For his audacity, Zan received a backhanded slap from a giant claw, and cartwheeled through the air a good distance before crashlanding next to Marek and Hulda. She was on him in a breath to check for trauma.  
  
The giant demon made a sound with his knuckles that sounded like logs popping in the fireplace, and rolled his shoulders before grinning at Hulda and her one friend still standing.  
  
”Will he be alright?” Marek asked, looking at his downed employer and the demon alternately.   
  
Hulda thought she could feel a faint pulse but could not get the faintest response out of the Evoker. She hurried to get up on her feet again, as the monster approached.  
  
”Are you serious? That thing's a Balor from the Abyss! Unless you can get him to not brutally murder us, I don't think anyone of us is ever going to be alright!”  
  
”Stay back then,” Marek said, “and let me do my job...!”  
  


* * *

  
For all the things the swordsman had gone through that day, Marek now really proved his worth as he faced the enormous creature on his own.  
Using its size against it, he moved in as close to the creature's monstrous legs as was even remotely possible. To Hulda it looked like an insane, suicidal strategy... but it worked. The demon could not get a proper blow in, shuffling and pivoting to get the distance needed for a claw-swipe between him and the Untheri with his slicing and stabbing sword. The peculiar dance lasted long enough for the stinking fur of the Balor's legs to become matted with steaming, bile-like blood. Cursing in its own language, the monster summoned an enormous flaming sword in his right hand, and took to a fanatic stabbing at the human beneath him.  
  
Feeling her mouth go dry, Hulda watched Marek skip and jump for dear life, breathing hard while the sweat flew off of him with each turn. Suddenly, a bestial cry had everyone present reach up to cover their ears – the demon had stabbed himself in the foot. Marek's own sword flashed and nearly hamstringed his opponent, and seething with anger, the Balor changed tactics again.  
  
Marek gasped and dropped his shield when a no doubt sinister spell washed over him, strong enough for Hulda to nearly taste its thaumaturgic tang on the tip of her tongue. The demon grinned around his foot-long tusks as he raised his sword over the dazed and cowering bodyguard; its orange flame described a perfect arc, ending where the warrior stood only a blink of an eye ago – Marek had sidestepped, and brought his blade up with both hands to intercept the demon's claw as it came down with all its inhuman strength.   
  
Blood gushed; the severed member fell away from the huge sword's hilt and the angry roar that came with the fiend's pain and astonishment shook every stone of the cromlech so hard that each wept soil and gravel from their fissures and cracks. Marek, too, gave a cry as the hot blood drenched him – blinded, he staggered back, frantically wiping and rubbing.   
The Balor had noticed, and reached out with his undamaged claw – Marek was grabbed, spat on, and thrown full-force against the tallest of the standing stones.   
  
Hulda could hear no grunt, see no twitch as she looked at the felled warrior near the stone's base. The demon gave the Necromancer beside her a withering look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	21. For The Love Of The Virgins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Balor has been summoned to the scene, Hulda's friends are down and the virgins have done nothing but whimpering so far. It would seem the time for playing it carefully is past! Someone better start doing something rash right now, or all hell - technically, the Abyss, will break loose...

”Just how many distractions do I have to suffer yet,” the Balor said in a grisly voice, “before I can taste the living blood and marrow of my advance payment?”  
  
This sent a wave of wails and shivers through the assembled Uthgardt girls again, who huddled even closer together.  
Mortimere raised his hands – defensively or to bid patience, Hulda didn't know, although she thought she could spot a trembling in the gnarled limbs of the man.  
  
”The addle-brained temple-wench and her cronies are but gnats, Lord, to one like you,” the Necromancer said with a flourish.  
  
The beast waved his wrist-stump at him.  
  
”Have you even the faintest _idea_ ,” he said, “about how inconvenient this is?"  
  
Hulda could think of a couple occasions where missing one's right hand might be problematic, but recognising a rhetorical question when she heard it, opted not to speak her mind.   
Mortimere moved over to present her and the unconscious Evoker to his demonic guest.  
  
“I'll gladly add their blood to your reward. But first, strategies must be discussed: for example, the region's _infrastructures_ -”  
  
”Is she at all a virgin, this one?” the Balor wanted to know, sizing Hulda up some more. “I don't get the impression that she is.”  
  
Hulda pulled a face despite herself. That was the second time in as many days!  
  
”A priestess of Selûne ought to make for a satisfying morsel regardless of the state of her virginity, I'd suppose. Now then, if we may?” Mortimere tried to wave the fiend back to attention. “Let's go over our deal again: when I lift the cromlech's ward, what will you do?”  
  
”Summon my brethren, and the brethren of my brethren – pour over this land like burning oil and molten lead to vanquish all life, drink every last drop of mortal blood and bind their souls in endless terror and torment,” the Balor droned with a sick grin. Mortimere stood a moment unblinking, then nodded his tentative appreciation at the poetic response.  
  
Hulda felt cold – an army of undead Uthgardt would have been fearsome, but demons were far more cruel and destructive. And if one Balor would summon another, who'd then summon two or three of his lesser generals, who could summon a handful of lieutenants each, who in turn would...  
  
”Your army will follow the road that lies south of this tumulus,” Mortimere interrupted Hulda's cascading train of thoughts, “which you will follow until it brings you to Waterdeep. Raze each and every settlement along the road. The _infrastructures_ should be left operable: I can't be bothered to rule a region that can't produce its own sustenance.”  
  
The Balor gave a bored, grumbling howl of sorts, and Hulda pondered on the implications of suggesting that Mortimere hire the services of the more business-like Baatezu instead of an unruly Tanar'ri.   
  
”With the notable exception,” Mortimere added, before the fiend could really complain, “of Silverymoon.”   
  
Hulda stared. Silverymoon was where she'd helped Gertrud, Mortimere's disobedient daughter, escape to. The expression of the lich hardened when he added through clenched teeth:   
  
“Leave no stone on the other, no tree standing – and no creature breathing.”  
  
”Silverymoon has wards against demons,” Hulda and the Balor said in chorus. The fiend glared at her, making Hulda mumble a quick 'sorry'.  
  
”Wards, yes – a Mythal, I know,” Mortimere said. “But it also has people who are, for coin, willing to turn a blind eye on _other_ people leaving a cloaked item here, scratching a glyph away there – you'd be surprised about how easily someone can be bribed, provided the amount of guilt is small enough. Even so, many little bits make one big: at the toll of midnight tomorrow, Silverymoon's Mythal will suddenly and inexplicably stop working.”  
  
”Fundinn,” Hulda whispered.  
  
”On it,” the bird replied, and quiet as a shadow, hopped off to a place where he could spread his wings unseen and make a beeline for the city. Even though it would take hours for him to reach Silverymoon, he was their best chance to warn Hulda's brother Jonas, who could in turn alert the rest of the Spellguard. If anybody could stop an approaching flood of demons, it was them. Meanwhile, Mortimere was rambling on about human nature and everyone having a price, but the Balor kept looking around as if searching for someone.  
There would have to be a diversion, and quick.  
  
”Pardon,” came Zan's voice from behind, before he worked himself past Hulda and the Necromancer on wobbly legs.  
  
”Didn't I fell you only moments ago?” the Balor said, his tone incredulous.  
  
”Eh, I slept it off,” the Evoker said with a shrug.   
  
The Balor didn't care much for this attitude, because he smacked his lips and asked:  
  
”Are you a virgin?”  
  
”Are you a goldfish?” Zan quipped right back with an air of prideful outrage. This made the fiend's tiny ears twitch in an odd, asymmetrical way. From where the virgins were cowering, Starbuster came slinking closer:  
  
”Master,” he said, “the women - they are growing more skittish each passing minute. Any moment now and one will go suicidal and try something funny, after which the rest might follow...”  
  
”If one does,” Mortimere said with a weary rolling of his eyes, “you gut her like a fish. Set an example.”  
  
”I just might,” the boy grinned, and drew a thin dagger from the sash around his waist. “But why not rid them of the silly idea before they act on it?” He flinched at a sudden movement from the demon next to him:  
  
”I don't like my food touched,” the Balor boomed, groping at the half-elf. Starbuster's weapon skittered off a rock and into a knot of heather when he got lifted into the air by a monstrous handful of his silk robes.  
Hulda saw an opportunity, and pretended to stagger back in fright and drop down on her bottom not too far away from where the dagger had landed. Its owner, meanwhile, received a vigorous shaking at the hands of the Balor.  
  
”Could you please not?” Mortimere yelled over the screams, dodging a circlet. “I have need of him yet!”  
  
”What's a goldfish?” the Balor leaned in to ask, but the Necromancer ignored the question.  
  
”If you have to maul somebody, why don't you pick – excuse me, what was your name again?” he asked Zan, who watched as the Balor flung a severely shaken Starbuster to the side. The boy scraped through six yards' worth of grass and grit before rolling over backwards, legs and buttocks leading, and then take to a moaning and clawing around without seeming to find out for himself which direction was 'up'.  
  
”I haven't told you my name yet,” Zan said, but didn't expand on that sentence either. He took three more strides towards the hulking demon and gave an impressed whistle.  
  
The Balor, from savage and blood-thirsting to hesitant and strangely uneasy under the Evoker's appreciative gaze in mere seconds, adopted a cocky tone when he said:  
  
”What? Never seen a Balor before?” He bared his vicious teeth with a snarl.  
  
”Not nearly long enough to get a decent look at one,” Zan said. “They were pretty short-lived in the mage academy I'm from. And afterwards there's usually not much left to admire.”  
  
Hulda kept inching towards the bush of heather, more frantically now that the Evoker had most likely signed his own death warrant. She dipped her hand in the vegetation, and felt the chill of whetted steel. Try as she might though, the thing seemed to be stuck, and she had to try and pull it by its sharp end. She cut herself, which was to be expected, but the sensation of filthy magic playing around the wounds on her fingers had her recoil; instinctively, she knew that this dagger's enchantments were tailored to cause severe bleeding. An assassin's weapon.  
  
The familiarity of warm blood on her right hand and the throbbing sting of a dagger-slash triggered a memory in Hulda's mind, however – one of a rather reckless high priest of Vhaeraun, and a blood-ritual in an abandoned temple ruin. Using her left arm to clear pebbles and stalks from a flat portion of rock underneath her, Hulda made to draw a circle. Less than favourable circumstances called for less than favourable methods, she figured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	22. Leave It To Hulda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hulda's ancestry gets to play a part in the unfolding events after all - but doesn't this count as fighting fire with fire?

Meanwhile, the Balor loomed over Zan, who was showing nerve akin to that Marek had shown before he was bested by the demon.  
  
”You would do battle with me, you oh-so-very-mortal grub? I would squeeze you like an ulcer and suckle on your entrails,” the Balor growled.  
  
”Yes, you do that,” Mortimere said, one emaciated hand fluttering with impatience. “Make short work of it: we're running out of time and he's completely out of spells anyway, the fool. Save your spittle for marshalling your damned legion, curse you! And eat the blonde wench so we can get organised and on our way already. Dawn approaches!”  
  
The Balor directed the Necromancer's attention back to Hulda with a nudge of his chin.  
  
”Keep an eye on your promised hors-d'oevre, corpse, or she'll have killed herself before either of us does; that's your minion's little butter knife there in the bushes.”  
  
Hulda had hesitated but now quickly closed the bloody circle, even as the Necromancer advanced on her and pulled her up by her hair, forcing her to look up into his undead eyes. She was suddenly overcome by the awareness that dead people's eyeballs were, apparently, rather dry and a bit sticky-looking. She could spot some specks of dust and a single human hair on them, even.  
  
”And just what,” Mortimere demanded, “is that supposed to be?” He pointed at the sketchy circle on the ground.   
  
Hulda offered him an apish grin.  
  
”... _Orgolorth_ ,” she said.  
  
A column of fire shot up from the soil next to her and dispersed to reveal the mighty Pit Fiend.  
  
”You again,” the infernal lord frowned when he saw Hulda.  
  
”You again,” the demon behind him echoed. All faces turned to him, and the Pit Fiend's frown deepened.   
  
”Didn't I slay you in the Blood Wars, only five decades ago?” Orgolorth rumbled, eyeing the Balor, tail swishing like a cat's with destruction of property in mind.  
  
”I slept it off,” the other monster said, causing Zan's head to snap up towards him. The look the Evoker sent the Balor's way was fit to curdle milk still in the cow.  
  
”You still had both your hands when I last put you to sleep,” Orgolorth said. “I'll make sure to tuck you in, this time...!” He conjured his own weapon: an immensely heavy, black spear with a barbed head the size of a man's arm.  
  
”I only need one to make short work of you,” the Balor taunted. “I could beat you with two fingers up my nose, even!”  
  
The Pit Fiend pounced and meant to impale his opponent, but the demon's flaming sword flew up and fouled the blow. Simultaneously, the stump of his right arm found its way into Orgolorth's side. That one nearly doubled over, but then Orgolorth buried the bony spur of his left heel into the Balor's foot, right where he had stabbed himself earlier. The sheer volume of the Tanar'ri's cry had the air waver visibly, and Hulda had both her fingers in her ears again all of a sudden. Before the demon could retaliate, his opponent's free hand shot up and punched him so hard a tusk dislodged.  
  
”Your fingers, or mine?” Orgolorth hissed.  
  
The demon spat out his loose tooth, and grinned.  
  
Behind him, in a half-circle, green and yellow vapours bloomed and delivered four demons onto the Prime Material plane, squat but powerful and each as big as a moderately-sized garden shed. They took to an agitated hooting and scolding in Abyssal when they spotted the Pit Fiend. The air quickly became permeated with the stench of rot and sulfur – Hulda felt her nostrils flutter like frightened butterflies at the offensive odour. The new arrivals were Glabrezu: demonic shock troops for their wars against devilkind.  
  
Orgolorth, unphased, made a beckoning gesture, resulting in more columns of fire. The cromlech's perimeter suddenly was home to a party of devils, all dressed for war and acting eager for it. In less than the time Hulda needed to formulate a plea for restraint and diplomacy, the demons and devils had initiated a charge and were in each other's hair.  
The clash when the two groups collided was physically perceivable for the vibrations it sent through the field of battle, and Mortimere, Hulda, Zan and whoever else was still on their feet all staggered. Virtually everywhere in the circle of stones, more Baatezu and Tanar'ri appeared. The air became thick with smoke and streaked with the fiery trails of combustive spells and magefire.  
  
”It's the Blood Wars!” Zan shouted at Hulda, from the other side of a file of Dretches, pot-bellied and halberd-swinging as they headed straight for a clutch of Quasits. “You brought the Blood Wars to Toril!” He brought his hands up as if to grab the un-graspable. “Why would you _do such a thing_?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	23. Dance Macabre With Crowd Surfing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Which are more nasty? Tanar'ri or Baatezu? Or maybe a particular Necromancer, who proves to be a major stick in the mud at this party that half of the attendants aren't even invited to... At least some people present know how to have a good time, as you'll soon find out.

Hulda and Zan were circling the ring of stones, wondering if there was any direction they could leave the hilltop in that wouldn't result in a fiery death. All around, the sorceric flames were still raging, its glow and the blasts of magic all around causing the surrounding smoke to light up multi-coloured for miles around to see. A treacherous part of the steep northern side of the tumulus crumbled underneath Hulda's feet as she trod it and if it weren't for the Evoker walking right behind her, she'd have toppled into a crevasse the noxious fumes wouldn't let her see the bottom of.  
  
”We got one option and one only,” Zan puffed and coughed as soon as they were both on firmer ground. “Those demons have to go. Killing the Necromancer might do it – I'm all out of juice, so if you have any spells left worth casting, I suggest you do so now...!”  
  
”I wouldn't think my magic-detection spell is going to learn us anything new in this mess,” Hulda sighed, looking about herself. That was when she saw a familiar blur jumping them from atop a standing stone.  
  
”I'll get you back for that trick you pulled on me!” she heard Pooky scream as he wrapped his scrawny body around Zan's face, wings flapping and barbed tail stinging him wherever he could reach.   
The imp only released his victim when Zan ran headlong into the big rock, blood running from bite and claw marks, and his golden earring suddenly gone. The wizard bit the dust, sputtering and shaking from the multiple poisonings while Pooky pattered around him and fired one mockery after another until the man lay still. The little Baatezu put the golden ring from Zan's ear on a knobby claw, admiring his trophy.  
  
”Now you've crossed the line,” Hulda growled, and would have landed both her hands on the little red killer if he hadn't winged himself out of her reach just in time.  
  
”Watch it, Bloodbearer! Master Orgolorth won't take kindly to you destroying the one in charge of you! A sign of good faith might earn you the right to bargain for the lives of any survivors, after our glorious kin has dealt with those pathetic Tanar'ri...!”  
  
”You should talk of good faith – you just murdered a survivor!” Hulda yelled back, pointing at where Zan lay sprawled, and, she now witnessed, slowly got to his feet again. Pooky followed her gaze but it was too late: the Untheri Evoker jumped the imp like a veritable tiger.  
  
”How?!” the cretin screeched, trying to scratch and scramble his way out from under the wizard, who'd hooked an arm around the runt and started beating him over the head with a circular pendant.  
  
”Amulet of Health, you little red trollop!” he shouted, giving no quarter.  
  
” _You_ ,” Mortimere's sepulchral, mad voice rang in Hulda's ear. She was brusquely turned around.   
Inside the circle of stones, Orgolorth was being overrun by demons – most of 'm not nearly half his size, and a good deal of those were flung this way and that, but the infernal heavyweight still seemed to be caught between a rock and a hard place, threatening to be overwhelmed. Mortimere was less than pleased with that, however. “Your little stunt has ruined everything! Years of preparation, countless stacks of gold wasted on bribes and resources! I'll make you pay yet, before this night is over...!”   
  
The hand he had slapped around Hulda's neck tightened its grip; impossibly tight, having Hulda guess it was unnatural strength the Necromancer employed. Try as she might, she could barely pull away a single, gnarled finger – but it might be enough.  
She used her free hand to shove Meldrys' magical ring on the Necromancer's digit. The lich's hands drew back, but Hulda made sure to keep her own wrapped around his. While the jewel's healing energies began burning away at the undead spellcaster's necrotic magic, she and Mortimere initiated a most peculiar waltz around the cromlech – Mortimere wanting to get Hulda and the ring off of him, she dedicated to not letting that happen until Selûne's magic had seen to his destruction. Already, the no doubt excruciating pain caused him to fail spell after spell he'd loved to have flung at her, and as they completed their rondo around the cromlech, Hulda managed to push the man down to his knees. Off to the side, she heard a chorus of cheers – but not for her. A screaming and kicking Starbuster, looking slightly nibbled on by devils, was lifted high over the heads of the virgins. The jeering picked up when the Uthgardt girls threw the half-elf over the side of the hill and into the fiery crevasse.  
  
”You're making a grave mistake,” the lich chuckled, his skin cracking and teeth loosening even as he spoke. He was close to falling apart. “My soul is stowed away in my phylactery – before long, I'll be back yet, risen anew, and more powerful than ever! You'll never find my fail-safe, you meddling girl...!”  
  
”Does it look like this?” a familiar, vibrating bass rumbled. The Balor, dishevelled but smiling, held up a small black lump in his remaining claw. Hulda could see it was vaguely pear-shaped, and about the size of...  
 _A human heart_. Cradle of the soul – Mortimere had chosen his preserved, blackened heart to contain his life-force after the ritual that made him a lich. The mortified look in the Necromancer's eyes confirmed this for her.  
“What – because we're denizens of the depths of Chaos, doesn't mean we can't do our homework,” the demon said, grinning. “We needed to make sure we could seize control if you proved to be restrictive, when we marched out to wage war and destruction on the Prime.” He dropped the phylactery on the ground, left foot hovering over it.  
  
”No!” Mortimere shrieked, and threw himself at the Balor's prize. The monster stomped hard, Mortimere's corpse already inanimate when it thumped against his clawed toes.  
  
To Hulda's consternation, the Demon didn't disappear – whatever magic held him on Toril wasn't tied to Mortimere's consciousness, this side of death's gate. The demon rumbled a chuckle of sorts.  
  
”The magic of the Ancestral Mound proved enough for our needs, should we decide to rid ourselves of the upstart walking corpse,” he said. “Now then, I take it you were to be the first course of my meal...”  
  
Hulda squeezed her eyes shut when the huge hand came for her, but suddenly felt being spattered by something burning hot, and looked up just in time to see Orgolorth's horrific spear being pulled out of the Demon's sternum, and jabbed through the throat again from behind. A bubbling gurgle escaped the monster before his destroyed form seemed to wrinkle and collapse into itself prior to disappearing from the Prime Material Plane altogether. Orgolorth watched the demon's blood hiss and boil on the spearhead, and when that, too was good and gone, he bent over and spat.   
  
”I can neither be killed, nor banished when the Bloodbearer calls on me,” he grumbled, more at the absent demon than anyone else. “My favourite part of the Pact to date..!”   
  
He rumbled a self-satisfied laugh and surveyed the field of battle. Left and right, demons and devils, or what little numbers of either remained, started winking out of existence.  
  
Behind Hulda, Zan and Pooky came rolling by, both sorely roughed up and neither yet prepared to yield to the other. Zan now wrestled the imp on its back and, braving the sharps claws that slashed his chest and face, punched him with both hands. When he received a vicious bite on the wrist, he yelled and swung the little fiend above his head once by an ear and launched him against a menhir, near Hulda and the fiery precipice. The imp stuck there for an instant before crumpling down into a little heap and being quietly kicked over the ledge by Hulda. While Zan lay huffing and puffing on his back, Orgolorth eyed the scene with a fairly stoic disposition.  
  
”Now then,” he said, scratching at the remnants of vicious wounds that were already quickly healing over, “state your wish, and we'll discuss the means of payment”.  
  
”Oh,” Hulda said, looking at her hands, and wondering if she should clean her nails, “I don't really need anything. Sorry for calling; I changed my mind.”  
  
Orgolorth glowered. Hulda cleared her throat. “Sorry to inconvenience you. That was some good fighting though, wow!”  
  
”If you think you can play tricks on a Baatezu, you're going to have a -”  
  
”Oh, but don't let me keep you,” Hulda interrupted, quickly sidestepping to where she'd drawn the summoning circle, and crouching down to strike it through. “Here, I'll help you leave,” she said, and completed the dispelling ritual.  
  
Just as the Pit Fiend had likely made sure summoning him was easy as pie when the contract was first made, Hulda's ancestor must've made sure getting rid of the fiend again was a piece of cake.   
Great – Hulda felt hungry, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


	24. Moon Shine On Your Path, Everyone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [SAVE]  
> The day has been successfully saved.  
> -Everyone- gained: warm and fuzzy feelings. Add to inventory? [YES] [NO]

In the relative quiet of the battle's aftermath, with the roar of the demon flames beginning to diminish into an adagio of soft pops and crisping sounds, a song started, of all things. Hulda recognised it: it was the Waterdhavian hymn to Selûne she'd heard the Uthgardt girl with the crossbow sing the day before. The voice of the youngster who sang was shaky, but soon more of the virgins added theirs to the effort. Hulda could feel something resonating within her – with her divine connection to her patron goddess.  
  
She and Zan carefully stole a glance at what was going on at the base of the biggest of the standing stones, just as a breeze picked up – a cool, falling wind, not smelling of ashes and smoke but of the clear sky above the clouds. The dry flowers of heather rustled in the cleansing draft, and from behind a dispersing veil of tarnished silver clouds, Selûne's thin crescent appeared, to smile down upon the scene below.  
Nearly a dozen virgins, all who could reach, had their hands on Marek, who seemed to be breathing but otherwise was not responding to any of their affections. Those who were singing thrust up their home-made charms and carved crescents, their invoking of Selûne's name a ceaseless plea now that the Goddess had made her presence clear. One girl sprang up, the ribbons on her wrists and waist fluttering about her as she spoke:  
  
”Mother Selûne, your children beseech you! Help us restore this brave warrior, who fell to make right what we, in our ignorance and vanity, have been made accomplice to. Aye, foolish children are we, but even if our priest did not have your name in his heart, we still do! Help us, Selûne!”  
  
The Moonmaiden's decision wasn't perceivable at first, but Hulda soon thought she could notice a slight change in the acoustics of the cromlech, making the virgins' voices ring louder and longer, adding power to their efforts to heal Marek. There was light playing around the ribbons of white and silver, and on the pale flowers everyone wore in their hair, making them stand out in the dusky gloom of pre-dawn like phosphorous light over a pool, but more brilliant. Soon, the circle of girls bathed in its own nimbus of Selûne's blessing. Someone groaned, and girls started tittering or weeping, hugging one another and planting kisses on their holy symbols.  
Zan had to pick up and move two blubbering and grinning virgins to the side to be able to get close and kneel beside his warrior friend. Both men clasped hands, Hulda saw, and she too felt something sting in her eye.  
  
”I have the honour to tell you, my friend,” Zan said to Marek, who was still lying down but at least able to return the smile, “that you just beat my record number of girls wanting to get their hands on you! Well, simultaneously, at least...!”  
  
One of the virgins, the one who'd voiced the supplication earlier, approached Hulda. For all the terror that the girls must have gone through that night, she looked to be brimming with energy and strength.  
  
”The evil wizard said you were a priestess of Selûne, is that right?” she asked. Hulda nodded:  
  
“I was sent here from the Temple in Silverymoon, to investigate an alleged impostor, here in Beorunna's Well,” she explained.   
  
Now it was the other girl's turn to nod.  
  
”Adsila knocked his teeth out. We threw him off the side, into the inferno. I'm sorry if this complicates things for your investigation, but we're still daughters of the Uthgardt – we're not very reasonable once we're good and mad...”  
  
To this, Hulda did not really know what to say in answer. She realised she'd been opening and closing her mouth like a helpless fish when the girl did her the courtesy of changing the subject.  
“We... I mean, my Moon-sister friends and I, we'd like it very much if you'd receive us in your Temple, where we could learn to become real priestesses of Selûne...” She gestured at the other virgins, who came standing closer, nervously toying with their ribbons and looking at their bare feet in new-found humility. Their eyes shone at the prospect of taking on the mantle of official priestess, but Hulda thought she could discern more – a newly kindled light in there, a spark of the divine, still burning brightly so shortly after having channelled the magic needed to heal Marek.  
  
”I think,” Hulda said, smiling at the group of girls, “that Selûne already deems you her priestesses. Otherwise, our warrior would not have been pulled from the brink of death: only her clergy can channel magical healing on her behalf. Your enlisting in the Temple of Silverymoon would be for form, mostly, and if you ask me, not appropriate. We wouldn't be Selûnites if we thought we should change the Uthgardt's way of life into something involving donation collections, garden-duty and sorting musty tomes in the library.”  
  
This caused an astonished twittering among the virgins.  
  
”But... we would learn about – about singing, and what to wear...”  
Hulda showed them her robes – now torn near the back, with scorch marks all over.  
”Well, _me_ , I wear this most of the time...” she said. “Selûne doesn't mind. Neither does she care if you're tone-deaf or a mute. She knows your hearts, and will distribute her love accordingly.”  
  
Her heart jumped momentarily to her throat when the Uthgardt girl she'd spoken to suddenly stepped up and bear-hugged her.  
  
”Then your heart must be big, indeed. Thank you, Moon-sister,” she said, and then passed Hulda on to the next virgin, and so on until Hulda was all black and blue and tender and a bit light-headed. Zan, not looking as frail as his bodyguard, got hugged and squeezed as thoroughly. Hulda gave him one, too, to make up for past inconveniences she'd caused the man. Marek couldn't stifle a laugh.  
  
”There goes that record,” he said.  
  
When Hulda carefully, haltingly shared the news of the destruction of Beorunna's Well, not one of the girls even considered leaving for Silverymoon anymore. Each and every one of them wanted to go home, at once: to count and tend to the dead and salvage what they'd need to start over, elsewhere.  
The spokesperson girl, the last to join the train of virgins leaving in pairs, assured Hulda that this was what death was to Black Lions: the end of the old, and a start of something new. A new spin to the wheel of Life.  
  
”The Black Lions will be vowed to Selûne from this day on, to protect the spirits of our loved ones and the new town we'll found. My sisters will not object to the name 'Selûne's Rest,' I think.”  
  
”Lady Meldrys from the Temple in Silverymoon will be pleased to hear that the region has a new bastion of the Moonmaiden, to be a beacon to the folk of the woodlands. This will include Lycanthropes,” Hulda said. “Too many bad role-models for those, sadly. You'll have to have patience with them.”  
  
The virgin chuckled, and hugged Hulda once more – more carefully, this time.  
  
”At least wolves are decent singers. Take care, Moon-sister, and if ever you're near, come visit.”  
  
Hulda watched them all leave, and kept on looking long after the moon-lit ash billowing up around their bare feet had obscured their white ribbons and flowered heads, and reduced the troupe to a silver-grey after-image in the night.  
  
”Moon light your path, sisters – each and every one of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro

**Author's Note:**

> Hulda Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Mortimere, Meldrys, Starbuster, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Zan, Marek & Captain Esfandiar © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


End file.
